Does the Fulton County system cover the North Fulton cities better than it covers the City of Atlanta?
the current system covers the entire county, for mobile coverage. Keep in mind, that Fulton county installed the current Smartnet system in 1990, well before the city of Atlanta, Cobb and many others were even on 800MHz.
the new Fulton system will have additional sites for downtown coverage. I have posted the full RFP for it previously on this site.
I am just trying to better understand why the North Fulton cities operating their own radio system constitutes "succeeding" from Fulton County, but the Central Fulton city (aka Atlanta) and most of the South Fulton cities building their own radio system is ok?
The current Fulton county system predates the city of Atlanta moving to 800MHz, which did not occur until 1995. Additionally, the Fulton county system was (and still is) only 12 channels, not enough to support all of the talkgroups needed by the city of Atlanta and the south county cities.
The city of Atlanta procured their own analog Smartnet (and later Astro 25 digital) systems because of the capacity and coverage issues with the county system.
Or maybe that's not the issue at all, and you think Atlanta and the South Fulton cities operating a radio system independent from Fulton County is just as bad as what the North County cities are doing?
It sure would have made sense, but with the county budget and city budget being separate, I get why it did not happen, and without a unified public safety force (e.g. an "Atlanta-Fulton county police" and "Atlanta-Fulton county 911") it won't for the near future. Who knows, that may change. With Fulton county being dwindled to nothing, they may have no choice. At that juncture, it would make sense to merge the two departments, two 911 centers, and thus radio systems. With Fulton county moving to an Astro 25 core, it would be fairly easy to integrate the two systems from a technology standpoint.
Ironic too, as the Fulton county police department initially started that way..until the county formed it's own police department in 1975, prior to that, the county contracted with the city of Atlanta for police services:
Fulton County Police History
Trust me - I'm really not trying to be argumentative here. I generally agree with you that cities should not waste our tax money on duplicative infrastructure where it isn't necessary, and counties shouldn't make needless upgrades (e.g. Cobb). So I'm just curious if there's a technology or other reason for the distinction between what Atlanta/South Fulton cities did vs. what the North Fulton cities are doing.
I hear ya. The Fulton-Atlanta situation is a little different, mainly because there (at the time the systems were procured) some technology limitations to work with, and even a worse political divide.
None the less, the new county system will be a huge improvement, I don't think it will be able to support the vast number of users of the city of Atlanta with only 12 RF channels (11 considering one will be the CC) or 22 talk paths (TDMA), but the current North county cities are getting by just fine capacity wise on the existing Smartnet analog system (coverage and reliability issues aside). So there is no reason not to just stay there.
