Ultra-rugged LTE device maker Sonim Technologies today began trading on the Nasdaq Global Market, a step that reflects the burgeoning open-standards environment that is developing with the establishment of public-safety and critical-infrastructure broadband initiatives, according to Sonim CEO Bob Plaschke.
“This is another milestone in a path that was driven by a lot of brave people who took the initiative to create an open environment for public safety,” Plaschke said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “We’ve been supportive of public safety along the way, and this is just another indication that the world is changing for public safety.”
When Congress approved legislation creating FirstNet—the nationwide public-safety broadband network (NPSBN) system in the U.S.—in 2012, many industry sources at the time expressed concern whether vendors would be willing to build LTE devices that operated on the 700 MHz Band 14 spectrum licensed to the FirstNet Authority.