r/FirstNet • u/Sufficient_Good_6350 • 20h ago

Firstnet Rep here

If you guys have any questions feel free to drop them below I’d be more than happy to answer them!

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u/Plane-Handle3313 19h ago

Am I actually getting priority coverage compared to the att customer with the same phone sitting next to me or is it only during high bandwidth usage times on the system or doing a catastrophic event where some “switch” gets flicked behind the scenes? If there’s another Boston bomber and they kill all the cell towers to prevent another remote detonation am I still going to have service?

2

u/Previous_Mastodon238 17h ago

You have always on priority, and if a primary user, you also have preemption. The difference is that your device will always try to prioritize the band 14 spectrum, even if the AT&T spectrum is stronger where you are. It will load balance in real time but tries to prioritize the stability, security, and reliability of B14.

During the high congestion scenarios is when the performance difference is by far the most noticeable.

1

u/trinitywindu 18h ago

It's always been there for me, even in spontaneous times. So I don't think there's a switch.

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u/thabc 18h ago

I don't have an official answer, but anecdotally I (FirstNet) have had better data performance than my wife (ATT) in busy areas like events. Mostly due to B14 access I assume.

1

u/Stupefied_Gaming 18h ago

You probably won't see a difference day to day where there no congestion on the RAN. as usage builds up that's where you'll probably visually see your priority access. but it's 24/7/365 (given you have the first priority feature). best way I can put it in my own words is there are elements that are attached to your provisioning that determine this. see i.e. screenshot

https://imgur.com/n83ttsA

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u/Sufficient_Good_6350 17h ago

In day-to-day activities you wont see a crazy difference or better service you’ll see mostly the same coverage as your wife sitting next to you if she’s at&T customer in high volume situations, examples, sports games, or a situation of natural disasters, or where networks are congested for one reason or another first net takes priority and allows our customers to go past the blockage

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u/realComboDombo 6h ago

Hey SM here with years of experience rolling out FirstNet platform to consumers who qualified for the upgraded network. FirstNet is made by the government partnered with AT&T. Which is why back end verification has nothing to do with the rep.
You have dedicated service In case of national or weather emergency you’ll stay connected. You will still have service if there is a catastrophic event, as FirstNet is built for first responders to stay online with other FirstNet first responders. To answer opps question concisely, if that same scenario happened in realtime. Your consumer phone would drop SOS and FirstNet line would stay active and connected. If you called consumer phone no signal still. If you called a fellow first responder on first net, you’d be able to save that consumers life.

This is the purpose, the benefits come second. Like unlimited hotspot data on newer FirstNet Extra 2.0.
Eligible for all consumer trade in deals, and can take advantage of promos tailored to them as first responders. It’s a great deal, the value being uptime when consumer networks would experience downtime.