FirstNet supports 7.8 million connections for about 30,600 public-safety agencies as of the end of September, FirstNet Authority contractor and carrier giant AT&T reported today.

During the third quarter that concluded on Sept. 30, there were 316,000 FirstNet connections and about 300 public-safety agencies added to the nationwide public-safety broadband network (NPSBN), AT&T reported. 

With the latest updated figures, the number of FirstNet connections during the past year have increased by 1.4 million—from 6.4 million a year ago to 7.8 million today—according to AT&T. As a point of comparison, the number of FirstNet connections increased by 1.1 million—from about 5.3 million to 6.4 million—from October 2023 to October 2024.

AT&T also reported 405,000 net postpaid-subscriber additions for the third quarter. This figure presumably was buoyed by the new connections from FirstNet customers, but it is impossible to quantify the impact, because AT&T does not share this type of granularity when reporting FirstNet numbers.

While the number of FirstNet connections continues to grow steadily every quarter, the number of new agencies subscribed to the NPSBN has grown at a slower rate. In the past year, the number of agencies subscribing to FirstNet has increased by 1,600—from about 29,000 agencies as of October 2024 to about 30,600 today. In comparison, the number of FirstNet agencies increased by about 2,000 during the previous 12 months.

AT&T officials did not mention FirstNet during today’s quarterly conference call, as financial analysts’ questions focused on other market challenges facing the carrier.

AT&T CEO John Stankey said he likes the company’s place in the marketplace, in terms of both mobile wireless and broadband, where AT&T realized its highest number of quarterly net additions in eight years.

“The opportunities ahead of us are in our control, and I wouldn’t trade our assets and position for anyone else’s in our marketplace,” Stankey said during the conference call, which was webcast.

Stankey said AT&T expects to close its $5.75 billion transaction for Lumen’s mass-market fiber business early in 2026. In addition, AT&T plans to deploy mid-band frequencies purchased from EchoStar next month, which is expected to bolster the carrier’s fixed-wireless business, he said.

“We started deploying the 3.45 GHz spectrum that we have agreed to acquire from EchoStar under a short-term spectrum-manager lease,” Stankey said. “Based on our current rate and pace, we expect that these mid-band licenses will be deployed—in cell sites covering nearly two-thirds of the U.S. population—in mid-November. This should position us to further expand the availability of Internet Air in our sales in 2026.”