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County considers radio system overhaul | BrunswickBeacon.com
County considers radio system overhaul
BOLIVIA—Commissioners have given Brunswick County Emergency Services Director Anthony Marzano the green light to move forward with a plan to overhaul the county’s radio system.
Marzano has come under fire and received pressure to overhaul the system from local fire officials to change the county’s SmartLink radio system and what many people consider its impediments.
Marzano convened a committee, made up of stakeholders, emergency services staff and county commissioner Marty Cooke, to research the county’s options in revamping or getting rid of entirely the county’s radio system.
Marzano said the sheriff’s office has the greatest need for the radio switch.
“They are between two-thirds and almost 75 percent of the radio traffic on the radio system,” he said.
“It’s getting critical out there,” Brunswick County Sheriff John Ingram said.
“Just let me put it in simple terms: What we have currently works very poorly at its best. We have people’s lives at stake.”
Marzano presented county commissioners with five options at a workshop Tuesday afternoon.
Options include to “De-SmartLink” and switch to LTR trunking system or to “De-SmartLink” and switch to conventional repeaters—neither of which meet the county’s exhaustive communications needs, Marzano said.
Other options include building a radio system from scratch or moving onto existing radio systems in Horry County, S.C., New Hanover County or the state’s radio system.
While the best-case scenario would be to build a new radio system from scratch, the projected $10 million-$12 million price tag and 24- to 30-month timeframe makes building a new radio system almost impossible.
Whatever option commissioners approve, Marzano said the system must include the following basic requirements to meet Brunswick County public safety users’ needs:
high-performance technology with a proven success in public safety applications; multiple layers of redundancy; true countywide coverage “from Calabash to Leland to Southport;” interoperability across the entire spectrum of county radio users and to be federally compliant or upgradeable to APCO Project 25 compliant.
VIPER
All things considered, Marzano told commissioner the best option to switch over the radio system would be to join the state’s Voice Interoperability Plan for Emergency Responders (VIPER) radio system.
“I feel, my staff feels and the feelings of the communications recommendations workshop committee is that this is the best option for us in terms of our short-term needs and our long-term needs.”
Switching to the VIPER system is “the only option that meets our needs in a cost-effective away. The best solution is to build our own radio system. It is going to cost us three times what it would cost us to go to VIPER.”
Unlike the current system, which doesn’t boast the public safety resume, Marzano said VIPER is a “public-safety grade, high-performance system.”
VIPER is owned and operated by the North Carolina State Highway Patrol, which is required by statute to maintain and operate a state radio system.
“We can use the system right now. Our ambulances have been using the system because the state has moved ambulance-to-hospital communications to VIPER,” Marzano said.
If Brunswick County were to move to VIPER, “we can tap into existing infrastructure.”
But the State Highway Patrol-run VIPER system is not without its concerns, Marzano said.
To tap onto the state system would include higher-end user equipment costs, loss of local control over the radio system and limited equipment manufactures.
“Recent legislation that passed in Raleigh changed language in the law to allow in some future point charging user fees,” Marzano said.
While there is currently no user fine, Marzano warns that could happen in the future.
Within Brunswick County, there are two areas of “somewhat limited coverage:” Ash and the St. James, Boiling Spring Lakes, Southport area, Marzano said.
In these areas, “every now and then you have a little signal degradation,” he said.
The cost to switch over from the current system to the VIPER system would be about $3 million—the lion’s share of the cost being $1.3 million for the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office and Brunswick County Emergency Services.
Marzano said the emergency services department has received grants, but not yet received the funding for the grants, for several communications projects, which he said could offset the cost.
In addition to the $1.3 million for the sheriff’s office and emergency services, it would cost another $150,00 to add system channel capacity, $540,000 for municipal law enforcement agencies, $85,000 for rescue squads, $900,000 for fire departments and $75,000 for Bald Head Island Public Safety Agency.
“I have not addressed Oak Island because they have their own dispatch center and radio system,” Marzano said.
“Hypothetically, if you said ‘go’ today, and I was given $1.3 million, I am fairly confident that by June 1, emergency services and sheriff’s [office] could be switched over. It’s simply ordering radios, programming radios, performing training and getting things switched over.”
While Marzano said commissioners could ask municipalities to pay a portion of the cost, “fire departments and rescue squads simply aren’t going to have the money to do it if we don’t step forward.”
Funding and approval
Ingram said the sheriff’s office has additional revenues of $175,000 from housing federal inmates at the Brunswick County Detention Center, which he would appropriate toward switching the radios system over to VIPER.
Marzano said emergency services has about $350,000 “that more than covers what is required for my department,” but doesn’t cover other fire and rescue departments.
Brunswick County Finance Director Ann Hardy said funding of about $1.9 million has been located to potentially fund the changeover.
“What we’re trying to do is stay out of fund balance,” county manager Marty Lawing said, adding some of the funding proposed would temporarily derail other county projects.
Commissioners gave Marzano the go-ahead to move toward converting the radio system.
