Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Motorola takes heat over 9/11

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 23 May 2004 14:18:12 -0400

Motorola takes heat over 9/11
Families allege faulty radios contributed to high death toll

By Barbara Rose
Tribune staff reporter
Published May 20, 2004

Angry relatives of victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks called
Wednesday for investigators to hold accountable New York City officials
and Motorola Inc. for providing alleged faulty communications equipment.

"Talk about the radios!" cried Eileen Tallon during the second day of
hearings in New York by an independent commission investigating the
attacks. Her firefighter son died during the World Trade Center's
collapse.

The outbursts by Tallon
and others spotlighted the
frustration of families who
are convinced more lives
could have been saved if
firefighters carrying
Motorola two-way radios
had not lost contact with
their commanders.

"I'm very angry because
my son was in the north
tower not knowing what
was going on" when the
tower was ordered
evacuated, Tallon said in
an interview Wednesday.
"If they had heard the
order, he would have made
it out."

For Schaumburg-based Motorola, which invented the walkie-talkie and
stakes its reputation on reliability, the allegations raise the types of
questions no business wants to answer in connection with an event that
looms large in the nation's consciousness.
Motorola said the equipment functioned properly and that overloaded
radio channels and other problems contributed to the communications
breakdown.

The commission concluded that a "repeater" that boosts radio signals
inside buildings was working, but that a fire chief mistakenly concluded
it was broken and switched to a less powerful channel.
But that finding may not end the issue for Motorola.

"Whether the claims are accurate or not, there's a perception that could
affect long-term sales, reputation and the way people think about the
company," said Shane Greenstein, Northwestern University professor of
management and strategy.
In fact, the outcry Wednesday reignites a controversy that simmered
among New York firefighters long before Sept. 11, 2001, and involves
alleged violations of contract rules and negligence by the city and
deception by Motorola.

Tallon is one of 12 plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed in January accusing
Motorola of rushing radios onto the market that it knew were unreliable,
setting off a chain of events that left firefighters using 10- and
15-year-old radios on Sept 11. The suit requests $5 billion in damages.

Motorola said the suit is without merit.

A federal judge dismissed the complaint in March on grounds that
plaintiffs gave up their right to sue when some of them accepted awards
from the Victims Compensation Fund, a pool established by Congress.
An appeal is pending.

The controversy over fire department radios started as early as the late
1990s, when Motorola offered New York officials a more expensive digital
radio to replace its aging analog models.

An investigation in April 2001 by then-New York City Comptroller Alan
Hevesi, who was campaigning for mayor, found the city broke contracting
rules when it bought $13.9 million of the new digital radios without a
competitive bidding process.
Hevesi's probe also found that the fire department had failed to
field-test the digital radios, and that battalion commanders had
complained of problems.

The new digital radios were recalled in March 2001 by the fire
department and the old analog models put back in service after a
firefighter narrowly escaped a burning basement when his radio calls for
help weren't picked up by his team.
The suit claims Motorola was aware the new digital radios were
unreliable and that some Motorola engineers and other insiders jokingly
called them Cosmo and Kramer, referring to the characters on the TV
series "Seinfeld."

The suit also quotes from an internal Motorola document that asked such
questions as, "Did we sell them the wrong platform?" and "Did we ignore
these [issues] to keep a $10-plus-million order?"

Motorola's John McFadden, sales vice president for the northern
division, said that document was part of a "debriefing session where we
beat ourselves up and ask if we've done the right thing."
"We absolutely did" do the right thing, he added.

McFadden said the new digital radios were neither defective nor
unreliable, and that any problems using them were related to inadequate
training.

Firefighters have been using modified Motorola digital radios since late
2002.

Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune

http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0405200306may20,1,943709.story?coll=chi-techtopheds-hed

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