Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Dog Pound - Nov. 26, 2002

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 17:25:26 -0500

Dog Pound
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St. Clair County (Ill.) is maintaining its Phase II lead, this time by
turning on location services for the sixth and last wireless carrier in
the region, T-Mobile. The County was the nation's first Phase II comm
center, and now has all six of its wireless carriers providing Phase II
data.

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You'll recall the FCC's audit of all frequency assignments below 800
MHz--it started in August, 2001. The FCC has completed a second round of
mailing letters asking if the radio station is still operational, and
explaining that the license could be cancelled automatically if the
licensee doesn't reply. Well, the FCC sent out 57,703 second-round
letters, and have received 26,926 back, leaving a substantial number
outstanding. The FCC will begin yanking licenses early next year. Check
if your agency is one of them at:

http://wireless.fcc.gov/plmrs/audit.html

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Long article in Wireless Week on plans by AT&T Wireless to drop its CDPD
mobile data system by 2004, and transition customers to the faster GPRS
technology. The article mentions that Verizon Wireless also provides
CDPD, and that more than 75% of its customers for the service are public
safety agencies. A Verizon spokeswoman said the company has "no plans"
to unplug CDPD. By the way, any agency transitioning to GPRS should
expect to pay for different radio modems, and possibly higher monthly
fees. There are also some wireless security issues: CDPD uses assigned
device IDs, but GPRS reassigns IDs during log-on.

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Unusual news: a Maryland dispatcher was arrested and charged with
multiple counts of theft after a 4-month investigation allegedly
discovered that he stole $26,000 worth of fire department equipment,
including communications gear, and sold it on eBay. The thefts started
this past summer, officials said. The dispatcher is a 2-year veteran of
the county's comm center, and also is a member of the local volunteer
rescue company, and two local volunteer fire departments, where the
thefts were committed.

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Good news for San Diego wireless users: Richochet Networks has
re-introduced the system there, allowing consumers to sign up for the
(claimed) 176 kbps service at $44.95 a month for unlimited service.
Richochet contracts with local governments to place small repeaters on
street light poles, which feed servers connected to the Internet. The
company earlier re-ignited the service in Denver, where the police
department has been testing the service, which is faster than CDPD.

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The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency has used a federal grant
to fund the purchase of $1.4 million in radio gear, distributed as
caches of portable radios, batteries, chargers and mikes to every county
in the commonwealth. The radios operate on the State Police Motorola 800
MHz trunked radio system, and includes talkgroups that hit ITAC
repeaters, and those assigned to interoperability channels.

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Clark County's (Wash.) Regional Emergency Services Agency’s 9-1-1 Center
has become accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Law
Enforcement Agencies (CALEA), only the second agency in the western U.S.
to receive the recognition, the center says. Accreditation involves
meeting a set of 214 standards for policies and procedures, and passing
an assessment by outside evaluators. The regional cener was founded in
1976, is based in Vancouver, and handles dispatching for the county
sheriff, 8 police departments, 3 EMS agencies and 7 fire departments.

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Strange but true: an on-line biography of actor Michael J. Fox reveals
that his father joined the Vancouver (BC) police department as a
dispatcher after a tour in the military. 

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The book "Singsation" involves a police dispatcher who tries to use her
voice for more... uh, creative purposes: singing. If you're interested
in dispatching and fiction, surf:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/0446678864/glance/

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