Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Editorial - Interoperability: Public Safety's Holy Grail

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 15:13:17 -0500

"Closing Comments" Editorial 
November 2003

Interoperability: Public Safety's Holy Grail

By Dan Veeneman

Nearly two decades before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon, emergency personnel from Washington, D.C. learned an important
lesson in how to work together.

During the evening rush hour on January 13, 1982, in the middle of a snowstorm,
an Air Florida 737 jet crashed on takeoff from National Airport. Half an hour
later, across town a commuter train derailed. Numerous municipal and federal
agencies responded to both of these incidents but were hampered when they
discovered that they couldn't talk to each other -- their radios were
incompatible with each other. In addition, what few frequencies were available
soon became overloaded.

The resulting confusion, delays and inefficiencies were the impetus to begin
developing common standards for public safety operations. Committees, working
groups, and consortiums generated hours of testimony and reams of paper to
address these problems. But even with all of their efforts, how far have we
really come?

Two decades later, despite good intentions and a lot of hard work, confusion,
delays and inefficiencies plagued the investigation of sniper attacks in the
Washington, D.C. area in 2002. More than 1,000 law enforcement officers and
analysts were involved, coming from several cities, three states and the federal
government. Because the department radios issued to these officers didn't work
with other agencies (sound familiar?), hundreds of very expensive portable
radios were handed out, programmed to work over a brand new digital system in
Maryland. Many investigators simply used cellular telephones. Some senior
officials made use of wireless personal digital assistants to send and receive
electronic mail.

Although it's self-evident that the ability for public safety personnel to
communicate with each other is critical during emergencies, what does it take
for this to happen?

Technical Difficulties

The first step is getting equipment that can work together. Radio equipment for
public safety agencies is currently available in several frequency bands,
determined primarily by historical licensing decisions by the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC). Older systems typically use VHF and UHF
frequencies, while new systems commonly operate in the 800 MHz band.

However, one size does not fit all, even for frequencies. Generally speaking,
systems operating in the 800 MHz band perform well in dense urban environments,
while VHF and UHF systems are more appropriate for rural areas where they can
provide greater coverage. There are patchwork solutions that can pass traffic
between these frequency bands, but they're expensive and don't always work well.

Even if the radios can talk to each other, there often aren't any available
channels to use. Trunking technology can help in using the existing channels
more efficiently, but the next frontier is 700 MHz, which holds the promise of
open, unencumbered bandwidth. It's currently allocated to UHF television
channels 52 through 59, but is scheduled to become available in a few years.
There are a number of proposals pending at the FCC as to how best use this space
– some good, some not so good. As the final decision-maker, the FCC must
establish rational rules about how the 700 MHz band is to be used. Poor
decisions will simply duplicate the problems that currently exist in other bands
and are especially acute in 800 MHz.

Standards

There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000 emergency response agencies in
the United States. Nearly all of these agencies use some type of Land Mobile
Radio (LMR) technology. Much of this equipment is proprietary and will only work
with radios built by the same manufacturer.

In 1989 the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO) began
work on Project 25 to establish a set of open, publicly available standards for
efficient narrow band digital communication. Instead of a proprietary system
provided by a single equipment manufacturer, these open standards allow any
number of manufacturers to produce compatible equipment. This allows some degree
of healthy competition, potentially lowering prices for everyone.

Phase I of these standards is complete and quickly becoming commonplace,
especially in large metropolitan areas. The federal government has specified
Project 25 equipment for nearly all of their new systems, so future
interoperability will require the use of these APCO standards.

Funding

Local jurisdictions typically cannot afford to build their own system. Even
small systems run into the millions of dollars, where a single radio can cost
several thousand dollars.

A potential solution is to follow the model used by such states as Colorado and
Michigan, where the state government provides a basic network and invites local
jurisdictions to join. In Minnesota, the Metro Public Safety Communication
System covers nine counties, including the Twin Cities. It operates a common
"backbone" of repeaters and related equipment, providing basic services to
nearly 5,000 radios in Hennepin County alone; twice that are expected across the
system when it reaches full deployment. The backbone cost $36 million to
install, which was shared among the various participants.

If planned and equipped correctly, this type of cooperation can also solve much
of the lack of capacity problems plaguing metropolitan radio networks.

Who is in charge here?

Although much progress has been made in addressing technology, interoperability
is more than just getting radios to talk to each other. It requires procedures
and processes to cure the jurisdictional conflicts and command struggles that
occur when multiple agencies have to work together. This is perhaps the most
difficult part of all, to create a true partnership focused on a common goal.

So, to summarize, several things need to happen:

-- The FCC needs to establish clear, rational rules for public safety operation
in the 700 MHz band;

-- Additional funding needs to be made available for local police and fire
departments to purchase, install, and be trained on new radio equipment that is
Project 25 compatible; and

-- Common operating procedures and clear lines of authority need to be
established for agencies at every level of government, especially as public
safety and national security continue to overlap.

Until these things can happen, the citizens of this country will continue to be
at risk from a lack of interoperability.

Source: http://www.monitoringtimes.com/html/mtclosing.html

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