M/A-COM wins $11.2 million contract in Peoria County, IL.

[Thunderbolt]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]LOWELL, Mass. – Dec. 10, 2007 – Tyco Electronics announced today that its M/A-COM business, a worldwide leader of critical radio communication systems, has been awarded an $11.2 million contract by the Peoria County (Illinois) Emergency Telephone System Board (ETSB) to implement an IP-based OpenSky digital private radio system, which will serve as the interoperability backbone for all of Peoria County’s public safety communications. After a detailed and comprehensive evaluation period, the Peoria County ETSB selected the M/A-COM OpenSky solution based on a variety of factors including the system’s extensive coverage capabilities, its ability to handle all of the County’s public safety communications traffic during both large-and small-scale emergency situations, its ability to support voice and data, as well as its capability to seamlessly connect to Illinois’ Project 25 (P25) statewide public safety radio communications network.

“Given the increased awareness of emergency communications challenges during recent crisis situations across the country, it was a significant priority for myself and our Board to equip Peoria County’s public safety community with the most advanced and effective communications equipment available,” said David Tuttle, chairperson of the Peoria County ETSB. “While we had the opportunity to directly connect our users with the Illinois statewide P25 system, we determined that it was in the best interest of our public safety officials and our citizens for us to deploy our own system, which offers a cost-effective and technologically advanced solution.”


“We reviewed detailed proposals from two separate vendors and determined that by choosing the M/A-COM OpenSky offering, not only will our technology needs be addressed, but we will receive excellent service and support from the company,” Tuttle continued.

In selecting OpenSky, the Peoria County ETSB cited the system’s end-to-end Internet Protocol (IP)-based connectivity as one of the deciding factors. In addition, OpenSky’s utilization of Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) to segment bandwidth in a 25kHz RF channel enables four independent users to send any simultaneous combination of data and digitized voice per RF channel. This capability was another attractive technical feature for the County. OpenSky will enable users to save costs by utilizing commercial off-the-shelf equipment and gives the Peoria County ETSB the ability to choose its own dispatch consoles. The new system will also provide unprecedented interoperability with neighboring radio systems. As part of this project, the Peoria County ETSB will implement the M/A-COM NetworkFirst solution to provide advanced interoperability to numerous VHF, UHF, 700, and 800 MHz systems throughout the area. Finally, Peoria County will be supplied with M/A-COM P7200IP multi-mode radios, which are capable of operating on the Illinois P25 statewide public safety network (STARCOM 21), neighboring Tazewell County’s EDACS system, nationwide mutual aid systems, as well as the new Peoria County OpenSky system.

“We are extremely privileged to have the opportunity to work with Peoria County to provide the sophisticated OpenSky system to the area’s public safety agencies,” said John Rosati, regional sales director, M/A-COM. “We commend the Peoria County ETSB and their consultant for their thorough and wide-ranging appraisal, which has resulted in the selection of the most cost-effective, yet powerful, communications system available. OpenSky is quickly becoming one of the most well-received systems in use by public safety agencies across the country, and we believe that users in Peoria County will soon discover the many advantages of using this advanced technology.”

http://www.macom.com/macom_prodnews.asp?ID=1344

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[iMONITOR]

God help them! :roll:

 

[br0adband]

$11.2 million for the contract, who knows how much time and additional expense wasted as everyone sits around twiddling their thumbs saying "Well, I swear, on paper it looked like the right system, it looked like a good idea at the time."

Go figure...

 

[JESSERABBIT]

$11.2 million for the contract, who knows how much time and additional expense wasted as everyone sits around twiddling their thumbs saying "Well, I swear, on paper it looked like the right system, it looked like a good idea at the time."

Go figure...

Maybe the good taxpayers of Pennsylvania could answer that question.

 

[DickH]

Maybe the good taxpayers of Pennsylvania could answer that question.

I'll bet the Peoria county "experts" didn't ask them or anyone else except the M/A-COM hype merchants. As Great Lakes said, "God help them". !!!

 

[crayon]

.. David Tuttle, chairperson of the Peoria County ETSB. “While we had the opportunity to directly connect our users with the Illinois statewide P25 system ..

What an idiot. This has turf war wrote all over it.

On top of that, he is listed as a chair for the IPSTA: http://www.911conference.org/

 

[gcr33]

And may God have mercy on their soul!!

 

[mikepdx]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] “While we had the opportunity to directly connect our users with the Illinois statewide P25 system, we determined that it was in the best interest of our public safety officials and our citizens for us to deploy our own system, which offers a cost-effective and technologically advanced solution.”
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There's no doubt that this decision IS in the best interest
of public safety officials and citizens...

...who hold TYCO stock.

With $11.2M now, then a million or two every few months for new towers
to fill in the dead spots, along with several software patches from the manufacturer,
it might just work. Yet another predictable and costly script.

 

[brey1234]

a few more stories abt MA/COm

A $2 billion emergency radio network intended to connect all emergency agencies and local police and fire departments in New York State has failed its first major test, prompting concerns from some state officials and causing the state’s second largest city, Buffalo, to opt out of the system.
The contract to build a network of wireless transmission towers that would allow tens of thousands of police officers, firefighters and other emergency personnel statewide to communicate was awarded in 2005 to M/A-Com, a division of Tyco International. The system was supposed to be in operation in Buffalo and surrounding Erie County and neighboring Chatauqua County by last June.
http://tinyurl.com/22xsve
http://tinyurl.com/2pxwzw


Dennis Vickery, regional vice president for Dailey-Wells, told The Courier after the meeting he was prepared to bid $6.8 million for a comparable service. Vickery's company manufactures M/A-COM radio technology and was competing with Motorola for the contract.
http://tinyurl.com/24ccjs

 

[studgeman]

Yes they will have great interoperability with network first, and for 1/4 of the price they could buy an ACU-2000 and do the same thing, using the same underyling theory. Did M/A Com tell the county to go from OpenSky to P25 you have to reboot the radio? Seamless, RIGHT!

Save costs using COTS technology? where? In the infrastructure? Every other vendor does that too! Did M/A com mention the P7200s and M7200s are over $3000 a piece? Even a fully loaded, ruggedized, Encryptyed XTS5000 is cheaper!

 

[43g70]

Where are you buying as XTS5k for $3,000 fully loaded?

The locals I hear are paying $4500 for Tier III with encryption, P25 Trunking, and 3600 baud trunking.

 

[OpSec]

What an idiot. This has turf war wrote all over it.

On top of that, he is listed as a chair for the IPSTA: http://www.911conference.org/

Really.

"I reject your Motorola reality and substitute it with my M/A-Com fantasy"

 

[gcr33]

I just say look at the track record. Fla which is not open sky but plain jane MA Com doesn't work well, PA open sky does not work well and now the NY test is a big failure. I am sure they will spin it with some fantasy.

 

[kd5dga]

Looks like another 12 million dollars of tax payers money down the drain.
Or should it be said, 12 million up front then a editional 120 million once the system is particially in place.

 

[W9GC]

I'd expect nothing less from a government entity.

 

[middleman]

searching for the best scanner.

If anyone can answer this question it would be much appreciated what is the best scanner out there?

 

[cubn]

Reminds me of McLean County in 1996

This seems eerily similar to how McLean County switched to a rarely used trunked protocol, EF Johnson Multi-Net. The system constantly made headlines as the county spent thousands of dollars trying to fix the system only to have Normal PD, followed by Bloomington PD and eventually all the users leave the system for more suitable communication systems (VHF/UHF and Starcom21). I think there's only a handful of Multi-Net systems still in use by public safety agencies.

We’ll see if Peoria County has better luck.

 

[N_Jay]

If anyone can answer this question it would be much appreciated what is the best scanner out there?

No one can answer that question.

It is just like asking "what is the best beer?" or "What is the best car?".

There is no answer because it is a multidimensional question and you are asking for a single dimensional answer, nit to mention, then most of the dimensions are defined by subjective factors and opinions rather than objective facts.

I used to criticise people who asked questions like this because it is obvious that they have given the question very little thought, yet expect others to try to answer it sincerely, however recently I have stopped doing that because the person (and usually a few other unthinking souls) have taken offense.

Now I just provide the simple answer that there is no answer, and let them get upset at my brevity.

 

[cubn]

Maybe it was an off topic post but if you re-read my comment, there is no question present--just an observation about another nearby county who chose the road less traveled and regretted it. My statement was oversimplified but know that I read all the articles in the paper about the McLean County woes as it was progressing. You're right, the infamous McLean County fiasco had a lot to do with the original system specifications being minimal at best but there were also software problems too--bottom line is it never worked adequately. Regardless of the causes, most systems don't warrant 50 articles in the local newspaper discussing how the radio system was failing (see this link if interested). With all that publicity, I can't help but associate EF Johnson Multi-Net with failure but in Peoria it's a different manufacturer, different budget, different system design, different...well...everything. I very much support METCOM and the fine people that work there and they have really solid systems in place now. Seeing Peoria looking at OpenSky brought back all these memories and I just don't want to see a similar thing occur in another Central IL county, but there are many factors regarding success/failure involved beyond just the system type and popularity.

Don't get me wrong--I sincerely hope that the Peoria County OpenSky system works flawlessly, but as a scanner listener I will certainly miss listening to them while I'm in the area. Hopefully it is the right fit for them. I'm not making any predictions--only time will tell.

 

[N_Jay]

Maybe it was an off topic post but if you re-read my comment, there is no question present--

Maybe it was an off topic post but if you re-read my comment, there is only an answer to the post of middleman and no reference to your post at all.:roll: :roll: :roll: