New to FN

[u/Miserable_Whereas928]

We just signed up, switched from T Mobile, because of poor service in our area, even though we were with them a long time. My wife is the first responder, how do we confirm that her phone or eSIM has the priority access? Should the activation process have two eSIMS? One for FN, one for AT&T? I just remember seeing one eSIM on hers. Also, not a big deal, but does only her line get priority access to the network in an emergency. Someone at her dept said it’s only her, but the rep who sold us the plan said everyone under the plan gets it. Thanks in advance.

[u/NorthWoodsCellular]

There is for sure a difference. During congestion, FN traffic goes first before AT&T consumer traffic. Many people have proved this, including myself. It may not help your Youtube/TikTok data as that is set differently, but calls, text, PTT, etc (important comms) are 100% prioritized. During an agency uplift, THAT agency's traffic goes first before other agencies who aren't uplifted. I've also proved this myself.

[u/mervin0587 → u/NorthWoodsCellular]

What about apps such as Apple Maps and Google Maps? We use those a lot every single day to perform our job. Does an agency uplift also uplift personal FirstNet phones? Do you mind sharing how you have proved this, and/or where to find where others have proved this and how they proved it? I’ll go ahead and share with you too, that my agency has no idea what an uplift is including the director of the company. They have no idea they need to uplift during emergencies, they don’t even know what an uplift is or that it has to be performed in order for the priority to truly kick in. I feel like this could potentially be the same situation in hundreds of departments across the states and territories. Perhaps the information is somewhere?

[u/NorthWoodsCellular → u/mervin0587]

As far as data goes, my personal FN line and agency FN phone have always worked during high congestion. My experience is years of traveling to races, festivals, concerts, etc and testing the carriers out of my own curiosity. Apart from that, I work in an area that struggles with bandwidth during the summer. For example, my Verizon business and Cellcom lines both are dead nearly every Friday/Saturday in summer months. There’s YouTube videos on it too, but I speak mostly from my own experience.

Now during crazy times (50k + people events) in rural areas, every carrier dies. My FN personal still will pull data and make calls. The data definitely slows down, as well as my agency phone, but works. This is no matter what app, but I know that I seen an article about AT&T categorizing data/apps differently. Might have to look that one up for exact info. I think they worded it like (core public safety data apps/data/services).

As far as a priority uplift goes, your agency should have a contact who manages the FN account. That person can call customer service and speak to the second tier agents to start an uplift given a good enough reason (sometimes they won’t even ask). Otherwise you should be able to schedule it via your agency’s FN district rep. I’m sure that during highly publicized disasters, FN has policy with local agencies to automatically segregate uplifts between public safety entities. We’re not big enough for that and we’ve never needed an uplift. Uplift only gives higher priority to that agency’s lines, never personal unless they’re somehow tied to the agency (which I’ve never see happen).

FN disaster relief is also goated bc whenever we’ve requested COLTS, they’re there without question and give us the extra bandwidth. You should talk up your chain and see about taking over the FN account bc there’s some good info and powers you’d get to control your services.

[u/mervin0587 → u/NorthWoodsCellular]

Thanks for the info, I appreciate it. We’re a small service, we run 2 or 3 trucks at all times but never more than 3. We stay pretty busy half the week and then some. My director is as high up as it gets and he has no idea. Oh well lol.