Not all looking into upgrades to meet 2013 federal deadline
Sunday, April 30, 2006
BY ANGELA GREEN AND HALEY MURRAY
OF THE JOURNAL STAR
PEORIA - Peoria County is not alone in upgrading its emergency radio system by a 2013 federal deadline that aims to multiply the number of mobile radio channels and accommodate the growing number of public safety users. While some local agencies have either met the requirements or are well on their way to meeting the deadline, others are scrambling to find money to pay for the expensive upgrades.
Stark County, for example, hasn't even found the money yet to meet the Federal Communications Commission's previous mandate on enhanced 911. The state should "come up with a viable option for smaller counties to provide their citizens with the same protection larger counties take for granted," County Board Chairman Mike Bigger said.
The FCC's desire to "narrow-band" the system began 14 years ago, when it decided to improve efficiency and double the number of radio channels by moving users to new, narrower ones that are half the size.
The FCC did not issue a mandate requiring the switch until 2003. When announced, it gave police, fire and rescue groups across the country 10 years to switch over.
"Nobody should be surprised by this," Illinois State Police Lt. Col. Craig Allen said. "This is nothing new. The FCC first proposed doing this in 1992 and finally put a rock-solid date on it."
A decade may seem like a long time to make a purchase, but this isn't simply buying a batch of new radios. It's a multimillion-dollar purchase that takes a few years to install and get running.
Peoria and Woodford counties are in the same boat as enormous Cook County and smaller, more rural counties: They all operate on a "conventional" system and need to either narrow-band it or upgrade to a "trunked" system, whereby computers more efficiently direct related users to available frequencies.
"You can't just wait until 2012 to start looking for a new system," said Peoria Fire Chief Roy Modglin, a member of the county's Emergency Telephone Systems Board.
Tazewell County has met the requirement since 1998, when it upgraded to an 800 MHz trunked radio system. It was one of the first in the area, if not the state.
"Our radio system in the 1990s was much antiquated. We saw (trunked radio) as the industry standard it was going to. We embraced that," said Steve Thompson, director of the Tazewell/Pekin Consolidated Communications Center.
Its system is sort of a cross between conventional radio systems and the top of the line system Peoria County is considering. Benefits include improved radio coverage, accommodation for more users at any given time, improved communication between departments and reduction of some operating costs.
"Everybody is going to trunking. It's extremely efficient," said Bill Clancy of M/A-COM, one of the top communications companies in the nation.
Peoria County's E-911 board meets Wednesday to discuss whether it's ready to commit to the frontrunner for the job: a $21.6 million, 700/800 MHz system called OpenSky offered by M/A-COM. If Peoria County goes with that system, it will have the most advanced radio equipment in the state three years from now when it is up and running, Clancy said.
Illinois State Police thinks its new system is pretty good, too. Called StarCom 21 (State Radio Communications for the 21st Century), it was created by Motorola exclusively for Illinois and allows for any public safety agency in the state to tie into its trunking system. It will be fully operational by January 2007, Allen said.
Already McLean and St. Clair counties have joined StarCom 21, and more groups are expected to follow. It provides an easy way for public safety licensees to meet the new requirements without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars or more on infrastructure. They can tie into the system if they buy corresponding radio equipment and pay a fixed monthly fee of $53 per radio.
Peoria County chose to pass on StarCom 21 in favor of newer trunking technology.
However, most central Illinois counties have no immediate plans for a pricey major upgrade. Instead:
- All of Woodford County's radio equipment is ready for the leap into narrow-banding, said its county ETSB chairman, Matt Smith.
Every department in the county has a conventional radio system. It works fine, and the county has no plans to spend big money on a leap into 800 MHz trunking.
"Why spend $5 million to get (into 800 MHz) when for $100,000 I could make the existing equipment the best system on Earth?" Smith said. It would cost much less to soup up the system with more radio towers and more operating licenses.
Plus, some officials say privately the FCC has been known to change its deadlines and are skeptical that the 2013 cutoff is written in stone.
- Knox County officials have just started discussing and calculating what it will cost to upgrade all its radio equipment to meet the federal mandate. In the meantime, they've made sure that all radio equipment bought in the last couple of years is capable of being both wide-band and narrow-band, data communications coordinator Vicki Miller said.
- Lt. Bill Arndt of the Fulton County Sheriff's Department said an FCC-inspired upgrade to the entire county radio system "hasn't really been a topic of discussion. . . . It's 2006 right now. It's still a ways away."
Some of the county's existing equipment is capable of narrow-banding. If a full upgrade is in order, Arndt, who also sits on Fulton's ETSB, thinks the state's StarCom 21 would be the best bet. "It's the wave of the future," he said.
- Stark County Sheriff Jimmie Dison said if his county has plans to meet the 2013 deadline, he doesn't know about them.
"That was mandated, but there were no funds (in Stark County) and they (the FCC) weren't going to provide those funds," he said. "And this county is broke."
Two referendums to fund Enhanced 911 have failed. The county is "doing all the things we need to do to be ready for (E-911); we just don't have the tax dollars to do that," Bigger said.
- Mason County's radio equipment is new enough that it can be upgraded to narrow-banding without much effort, Sheriff Wayne Youell said. "We are not there yet, but we aren't far from it."
- The Springfield Police Department has used a Motorola trunking system since 1999, and the fire department was added a little more than a year ago, said Michael Midiri, telecommunications manager for the city.
- Other areas have banded together to meet the federal deadline. Will County 911, the DuPage County Communications Center and other agencies in DuPage County, and agencies in Naperville, Aurora and Elgin, joined forces to form the Northeast Illinois Communications Consortium.
NICC project manager Dan Voiland said a regional communications system could potentially save them all millions of dollars. By working together, Voiland estimated, each agency could save 28 to 30 percent in purchasing costs.
"If we each did our own system, the total cost would be $228 million. If we do a regional system where we're able to share a system, the price goes down to about $165 million," he said.
Angela Green can be reached at 686-3142 or agreen@pjstar.com.
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Sunday, April 30, 2006
BY ANGELA GREEN AND HALEY MURRAY
OF THE JOURNAL STAR
PEORIA - Peoria County is not alone in upgrading its emergency radio system by a 2013 federal deadline that aims to multiply the number of mobile radio channels and accommodate the growing number of public safety users. While some local agencies have either met the requirements or are well on their way to meeting the deadline, others are scrambling to find money to pay for the expensive upgrades.
Stark County, for example, hasn't even found the money yet to meet the Federal Communications Commission's previous mandate on enhanced 911. The state should "come up with a viable option for smaller counties to provide their citizens with the same protection larger counties take for granted," County Board Chairman Mike Bigger said.
The FCC's desire to "narrow-band" the system began 14 years ago, when it decided to improve efficiency and double the number of radio channels by moving users to new, narrower ones that are half the size.
The FCC did not issue a mandate requiring the switch until 2003. When announced, it gave police, fire and rescue groups across the country 10 years to switch over.
"Nobody should be surprised by this," Illinois State Police Lt. Col. Craig Allen said. "This is nothing new. The FCC first proposed doing this in 1992 and finally put a rock-solid date on it."
A decade may seem like a long time to make a purchase, but this isn't simply buying a batch of new radios. It's a multimillion-dollar purchase that takes a few years to install and get running.
Peoria and Woodford counties are in the same boat as enormous Cook County and smaller, more rural counties: They all operate on a "conventional" system and need to either narrow-band it or upgrade to a "trunked" system, whereby computers more efficiently direct related users to available frequencies.
"You can't just wait until 2012 to start looking for a new system," said Peoria Fire Chief Roy Modglin, a member of the county's Emergency Telephone Systems Board.
Tazewell County has met the requirement since 1998, when it upgraded to an 800 MHz trunked radio system. It was one of the first in the area, if not the state.
"Our radio system in the 1990s was much antiquated. We saw (trunked radio) as the industry standard it was going to. We embraced that," said Steve Thompson, director of the Tazewell/Pekin Consolidated Communications Center.
Its system is sort of a cross between conventional radio systems and the top of the line system Peoria County is considering. Benefits include improved radio coverage, accommodation for more users at any given time, improved communication between departments and reduction of some operating costs.
"Everybody is going to trunking. It's extremely efficient," said Bill Clancy of M/A-COM, one of the top communications companies in the nation.
Peoria County's E-911 board meets Wednesday to discuss whether it's ready to commit to the frontrunner for the job: a $21.6 million, 700/800 MHz system called OpenSky offered by M/A-COM. If Peoria County goes with that system, it will have the most advanced radio equipment in the state three years from now when it is up and running, Clancy said.
Illinois State Police thinks its new system is pretty good, too. Called StarCom 21 (State Radio Communications for the 21st Century), it was created by Motorola exclusively for Illinois and allows for any public safety agency in the state to tie into its trunking system. It will be fully operational by January 2007, Allen said.
Already McLean and St. Clair counties have joined StarCom 21, and more groups are expected to follow. It provides an easy way for public safety licensees to meet the new requirements without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars or more on infrastructure. They can tie into the system if they buy corresponding radio equipment and pay a fixed monthly fee of $53 per radio.
Peoria County chose to pass on StarCom 21 in favor of newer trunking technology.
However, most central Illinois counties have no immediate plans for a pricey major upgrade. Instead:
- All of Woodford County's radio equipment is ready for the leap into narrow-banding, said its county ETSB chairman, Matt Smith.
Every department in the county has a conventional radio system. It works fine, and the county has no plans to spend big money on a leap into 800 MHz trunking.
"Why spend $5 million to get (into 800 MHz) when for $100,000 I could make the existing equipment the best system on Earth?" Smith said. It would cost much less to soup up the system with more radio towers and more operating licenses.
Plus, some officials say privately the FCC has been known to change its deadlines and are skeptical that the 2013 cutoff is written in stone.
- Knox County officials have just started discussing and calculating what it will cost to upgrade all its radio equipment to meet the federal mandate. In the meantime, they've made sure that all radio equipment bought in the last couple of years is capable of being both wide-band and narrow-band, data communications coordinator Vicki Miller said.
- Lt. Bill Arndt of the Fulton County Sheriff's Department said an FCC-inspired upgrade to the entire county radio system "hasn't really been a topic of discussion. . . . It's 2006 right now. It's still a ways away."
Some of the county's existing equipment is capable of narrow-banding. If a full upgrade is in order, Arndt, who also sits on Fulton's ETSB, thinks the state's StarCom 21 would be the best bet. "It's the wave of the future," he said.
- Stark County Sheriff Jimmie Dison said if his county has plans to meet the 2013 deadline, he doesn't know about them.
"That was mandated, but there were no funds (in Stark County) and they (the FCC) weren't going to provide those funds," he said. "And this county is broke."
Two referendums to fund Enhanced 911 have failed. The county is "doing all the things we need to do to be ready for (E-911); we just don't have the tax dollars to do that," Bigger said.
- Mason County's radio equipment is new enough that it can be upgraded to narrow-banding without much effort, Sheriff Wayne Youell said. "We are not there yet, but we aren't far from it."
- The Springfield Police Department has used a Motorola trunking system since 1999, and the fire department was added a little more than a year ago, said Michael Midiri, telecommunications manager for the city.
- Other areas have banded together to meet the federal deadline. Will County 911, the DuPage County Communications Center and other agencies in DuPage County, and agencies in Naperville, Aurora and Elgin, joined forces to form the Northeast Illinois Communications Consortium.
NICC project manager Dan Voiland said a regional communications system could potentially save them all millions of dollars. By working together, Voiland estimated, each agency could save 28 to 30 percent in purchasing costs.
"If we each did our own system, the total cost would be $228 million. If we do a regional system where we're able to share a system, the price goes down to about $165 million," he said.
Angela Green can be reached at 686-3142 or agreen@pjstar.com.
