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Texas county ‘counts on Verizon,’ selects carrier for emergency services contract

Verizon connectivity will help Harris County ESD No. 11 respond to the more than 55,000 emergency calls it receives over the course of a year

Verizon Frontline will provide the Harris County, Texas Emergency Services District (ESD) No. 11 with connectivity and smartphones per a recently announced contract. The Harris County ESD will make use of Verizon’s network and devices in its trucks and ambulances to better serve the county’s citizens.

“When lives are on the line and every second counts, the Harris County Emergency Services District No. 11 team can count on Verizon,” said Jennifer Chronis, senior vice president, Verizon Public Sector. “Verizon Frontline was built from the ground up with the needs of first responder agencies like Harris County ESD No. 11 in mind, including priority and preemption and commitment to real interoperability, regardless of network, platform or device.”

Harris County ESD No. 11 responds to more than 55,000 calls and provides emergency medical services to more than 600,000 residents across 177 square miles of North Harris County over the period of one year. Further, the ESD added a new service, called Mobile Healthcare, in early September, where it will centralize its emergency response operations, increasing efficiency and decreasing costs, while providing a higher quality mobile healthcare service.

The organization also stated that ESD 11 Mobile Healthcare will have “a fleet of 40 new state-of-the-art ambulances […] outfitted with the latest in emergency medical technology,” demonstrating its focus on using technology to deliver a more reliable and mobile emergency and healthcare service.

In related news, Verizon Frontline this summer unveiled a Tactical Humanitarian Operations Response (THOR) vehicle at Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Miramar, a mobile and private rapid-response command center that is compatible with Verizon’s mmWave 5G network — which the carrier calls 5G Ultra Wideband — and mobile edge compute (MEC).

Referred to as the “first-of-its-kind” and “the Swiss Army knife of Verizon Frontline services,” THOR is capable of deploying Verizon Frontline technology, applications and advanced computing.

ABOUT AUTHOR

Catherine Sbeglia Nin
Catherine Sbeglia Nin
Catherine is the Managing Editor for RCR Wireless News and Enterprise IoT Insights, where she covers topics such as Wi-Fi, network infrastructure and edge computing. She also hosts Arden Media's podcast Well, technically... After studying English and Film & Media Studies at The University of Rochester, she moved to Madison, WI. Having already lived on both coasts, she thought she’d give the middle a try. So far, she likes it very much.