ESChat, a leading provider of over-the-top (OTT) push-to-talk (PTT) communications, today announced that its ESChat for Government solution has received Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP)authorization. This milestone affirms that ESChat for Government meets the rigorous cybersecurity standards required by federal agencies for cloud-hosted services.

“This is a significant achievement that opens the door for expanded adoption across federal, state, and local agencies,” said Josh Lober, President and CEO of ESChat. “The FedRAMP authorization eliminates a key barrier for many existing and prospective customers who require compliant cloud-based communications solutions.”

ESChat becomes the only PTT solution to hold FedRAMP authorization, positioning it uniquely within the public safety and government communications market.

“It clears the path for existing customers to expand their deployments and enables new agencies to adopt ESChat who previously could not due to federal cloud compliance requirements,” Josh Lober said in an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “By law, federal agencies cannot use non-FedRAMP cloud-hosted services—this authorization removes that restriction.”

The FedRAMP authorization follows more than two years of rigorous preparation, conducted under the sponsorship of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). ESChat received formal notification of its authorization on Friday, shortly after completing a comprehensive migration of its government customers to a new FedRAMP-compliant platform hosted in AWS GovCloud.

“All of our public safety customers were already hosted in AWS GovCloud,” Josh Lober explained. “We’ve now completed the migration to a FedRAMP-authorized instance of that platform, which includes the additional controls and validations required for federal compliance.”

The migration was finalized on Monday, July 28, and authorization was granted on Friday, August 1.

A small subset of customers—those integrating their P25 LMR systems via Inter-RF Subsystem Interface (ISSI)—have not yet migrated due to concerns around housing encryption keys in the cloud. To address this, ESChat plans to release a FedRAMP ISSI proxy in early 2026.

“The proxy will be an on-premise appliance,” Josh Lober said. “The ISSI connection and encryption keys will remain entirely within the customer’s facility. The proxy will then convert and transmit traffic securely to the ESChat cloud in a FedRAMP-compliant manner.”

This solution ensures that P25 interoperability is maintained while addressing the highest standards for key management and security.

“Interagency interoperability is one of ESChat’s greatest strengths,” Josh Lober added. “Whether for mutual aid or tactical operations, agencies need secure, compliant communications—and FedRAMP ensures everything that touches the ESChat for Government ecosystem meets that standard.”