Clayton Co. FD Channel 7

[MTS2000des]

Yes, we all know Clayton County has some major budget issues, more so than other agencies throughout our State, but I hear there may be grant assistance for interoperable communications through the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI), Assistance to Firefighters Grants and other Homeland Security Grants through GEMA. If the correct people are involved and the right justifications are written then it is possible for the majority of the funding needed to purchase an 800 MHz System for Clayton County to use without Clayton County having to spend much money at all, if any. With Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Airport being located in Clayton County and the cities of Forest Park, Jonesboro, Lake City, Morrow and Riverdale all being on different Systems it wouldn't take much to justify expanding the existing UASI - Atlanta 800 MHz P25 System into these areas. This could be done if the right players are involved, funding from various grant sources are pooled and elected officials from these different jurisdictions agree to pay a monthly fee per radio on the system to maintain the radio system infrastructure, but you all know if it is done this way Motorola would be the only vendor equipment could be purchased from, at least on the infrastructure side.

All I can say at this point is this will be a very interesting thing to watch to see what happens!

All the cities in Clayco have VHF conventional and no problem interoperating. I did a consult with the city of Morrow in 2007 and found that they had no issues, only thing they were facing is narrowbanding which 90 percent of their subscriber radios needed reprogramming. They had some older TK-250's that weren't G versions so they would need replacement.

To make the UASI a reality means we have to have real OmniLink roaming enabled and that has yet to happen. This means a real working ISSI. To make that happen means a real metro wide communications authority, with state funding and backing. Otherwise it's the same old same old.

I think the term "herding cats" was used by a certain unnamed official in reference to the UASI project.

 

[RobertsRadio]

Clayton County Interoperability

All the cities in Clayco have VHF conventional and no problem interoperating. I did a consult with the city of Morrow in 2007 and found that they had no issues, only thing they were facing is narrowbanding which 90 percent of their subscriber radios needed reprogramming. They had some older TK-250's that weren't G versions so they would need replacement.

To make the UASI a reality means we have to have real OmniLink roaming enabled and that has yet to happen. This means a real working ISSI. To make that happen means a real metro wide communications authority, with state funding and backing. Otherwise it's the same old same old.

I think the term "herding cats" was used by a certain unnamed official in reference to the UASI project.

With Clatyon County PD being VHF and the City of Morrow PD being VHF I can see where there are probably no interoperability issues between the two, but with Morrow being just south of Forest Park and Forest Park PD being on 800 MHz one would think there are some interoperable issues between these agencies unless they have installed a radio in each of the two frequency bands in each car or rely on a crossband repeater or some other type of gateway such as Motobridge to connect the systems when needed. Throw the fire departments for these three jurisdictions in the mix then one would think there must be even more interoperability issues with Clayton County FD being UHF, Morrow FD being VHF and Forest Park FD being 800 MHz. Again, all of this is being presumed that there are not multiple radios in fire apparatus or some type of gateway in use to cross patch on the fly. We all must remember that many agencies will not admit there are interoperability issues because they either fear they will be forced to cough up the funding to do something different or they just do not want to communicate directly with other jurisdictions in their area due to turf wars or other factors. The UASI Atlanta Project was originally established as an effort to foster interoperability among the command and control aspects of all public safety agencies in GEMA Region 7 (Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry and Rockdale Counties). There has been a recent change in the scope and direction of this system as it relates to the use with emphasis being on changing it to a daily use system among the public safety agencies in several cities in northern Fulton County to address the problems with the aging analog 800 MHz System owned by Fulton County System and as a means to generate the funding necessary to cover the costs of maintaining the UASI Atlanta System since federal funding appears to be drying up.

 

[MTS2000des]

So when does OmniLink roaming become a reality? That's what all the investment in Astro 25 was supposed to yield and thus far it's coming up on 5 years since some agencies pushed to make the switch to P25 phase I and it isn't happening. and some of those agencies indicate they intend to migrate to phase II which means ANOTHER replacement of subscriber units and infrastructure, as now Motorola has made it clear the original Astro 25 subscriber hardware (e.g. XTS5000, XTL series, etc) will NOT support phase II as part of any HOST/DSP upgrades.

So I am starting to think it was a huge waste of money, especially since many agencies are struggling to meet payroll. As the economy continues to slide into the toilet, demand for public safety services increase- and money that could have been spent to hire more PD officers, open fire stations and put more ambulances on the street was diverted to pay for radio upgrades that may not have been so urgent. Especially considering that more advanced technologies such as LTE are around the corner for public safety.

 

[RobertsRadio]

Roaming Radios

So when does OmniLink roaming become a reality? That's what all the investment in Astro 25 was supposed to yield and thus far it's coming up on 5 years since some agencies pushed to make the switch to P25 phase I and it isn't happening.

Cobb County PD and SO already have radios set up to automatically roam between the Cobb County, Atlanta UASI and City of Douglasville Systems. The capability for a radio to roam is allowable through the Motorola SmartZone Switch purchased by Cobb County and individual radio IDs must be granted authorization to roam between systems, plus talkgroups must be being given the "wide area roaming" designation. With this being the case a radio ID authorized to roam must be on a "wide area" talkgroup in order for the police officer or sheriff's deputy to take advantage of this capability otherwise they remain only within the coverage of their home system. Negotiations have been underway to get the City of Atlanta, DeKalb County, MARTA and others in the metro area to interface their P25 systems to the SmartZone Switch to allow radios to roam in to and out of these jurisdictions too. However, in order to do this all systems must be the same version level and some huge political hurdles must be jumped associated with getting the necessary contracts/agreements in place between the various cities and counties outlining who is going to pay for the initial and reoccurring costs required to keep they systems connected to together. If this ever comes to fruition watch for future connections to the WARRS System in West Georgia, the OARS System in the Athens Area and possibly the Chattnooga System too. Once this becomes a reality, watch for more cities and counties in North Georgia to express a desire to become part of this huge network.

 

[MTS2000des]

Cobb County PD and SO already have radios set up to automatically roam between the Cobb County, Atlanta UASI and City of Douglasville Systems. The capability for a radio to roam is allowable through the Motorola SmartZone Switch purchased by Cobb County and individual radio IDs must be granted authorization to roam between systems, plus talkgroups must be being given the "wide area roaming" designation. With this being the case a radio ID authorized to roam must be on a "wide area" talkgroup in order for the police officer or sheriff's deputy to take advantage of this capability otherwise they remain only within the coverage of their home system. Negotiations have been underway to get the City of Atlanta, DeKalb County, MARTA and others in the metro area to interface their P25 systems to the SmartZone Switch to allow radios to roam in to and out of these jurisdictions too. However, in order to do this all systems must be the same version level and some huge political hurdles must be jumped associated with getting the necessary contracts/agreements in place between the various cities and counties outlining who is going to pay for the initial and reoccurring costs required to keep they systems connected to together. If this ever comes to fruition watch for future connections to the WARRS System in West Georgia, the OARS System in the Athens Area and possibly the Chattnooga System too. Once this becomes a reality, watch for more cities and counties in North Georgia to express a desire to become part of this huge network.

That is all a great concept in theory, but without leadership at the state level and the funding for all those involved to support it, the "herding cats" effort can be difficult to accomplish.

the budget is the biggest issue, considering that the Smartzone OmniLink platform IS proprietary, this means expensive system release upgrades MUST happen to even get everyone on the playing field. Last I checked, the MARTA DTRS is a circa 2004 Astro SZOL V4 setup with mixed mode operation, most of the subscriber radios I have observed were running HOST/DSP releases going back to V7, considering that 15.00.xx is current, those are alot of radios to touch and much infrastructure to upgrade. This is an agency that is already cash strapped and cutting routes and raising fares just to keep the lights on.

and that is only one player. Fulton county is even more desperate. I'd love to find a money ferry.

 

[SCPD]

SmartZone Roaming

To my knowledge most of what RobertsRadio and MTS2000des have posted related to roaming are both correct, but I am not going to list which parts of the postings are correct or incorrect. I will tell you it is my understanding that the goal is to get as many of the Motorola P25 Systems in the metro Atlanta area to Version 7.9 in the near future to allow all agencies to take advantage of some additional features and capabilities the systems do not have now. As usual, there are some technical, political and financial obstacles that must be overcome, but I understand these are being worked on at various levels. I can tell you from experience that I have programmed an E. F. Johnson 5100 series 800 MHz P25 radio to operate on the Cobb County and UASI - Atlanta Systems and it worked fine, so I anticipate this to be the same case once the City of Atlanta and some of the other counties connect their systems to the SmartZone Switch at Cobb.

 

[kg4ciu]

Couldn't the desired level of system coverage and interoperability have been achieved with a smart zone'd analog system we the same level of functionality.

Whats needed Now is a Metro Area Radio System authority charted by the state, tasked with providing the metro counties with required
interoperable communications as a governmental SMR if you will. Counties/ cities would simply be subscribers.
I'm also a fan of dedicated mutual aid Patches which affords interoperability to those visiting the area that don't have equipment subscribed to the system. But hey that's my pipe dream - everyone being able to talk to everyone else like in the good ol' days before $7k portables.

 

[MTS2000des]

we should be waiting for LTE not P25 Phase 2!

Couldn't the desired level of system coverage and interoperability have been achieved with a smart zone'd analog system we the same level of functionality.

Whats needed Now is a Metro Area Radio System authority charted by the state, tasked with providing the metro counties with required
interoperable communications as a governmental SMR if you will. Counties/ cities would simply be subscribers.
I'm also a fan of dedicated mutual aid Patches which affords interoperability to those visiting the area that don't have equipment subscribed to the system. But hey that's my pipe dream - everyone being able to talk to everyone else like in the good ol' days before $7k portables.

Smartzone analog was being phased out by Motorola in 2002/2003 as they were pushing Astro 25. It would not have made sense to buy obsolete hardware back in 2005/2006- oh wait we did that anyway- it's called P25.

The real future is 4G LTE @700MHz, the recent announcement from Motorola/Ericsson/Verizon, if it proves true, in a few years will make P25 radios (phase 1 and 2) look as antique as a rotary telephone.

Motorola Solutions And Verizon Wireless Enter Alliance To Bring LTE Advantages To Public Safety Customers Across The United States
Motorola, Verizon establish public-safety LTE alliance -- Urgent Communications article

Spending money on what will soon be yesterday's technology is a waste when truly more advanced robust systems such as 4G LTE are right around the corner. The backing of a national carrier such as Verizon is a win, as they already have the sites, infrastructure, backhaul and staff to make a nationwide radio system a reality. A radio system that will do MORE than just voice.

This is where we need to be banking our money, not on expensive radio systems that only have a short 5 year lifespan and don't do anything the existing functioning analog radio systems could not do. Maybe if we had done that, we wouldn't be scratching our heads figuring out which fire stations to close or how much our taxes are going to go up to make up for an OPEX budget shortfall in our fire department because we spent money on a digital radio system we did not need and does not do anything more than what it replaced. Just a thought.

 

[SCPD]

Waiting for 4g lte

In some ways I agree with you, but in others I do not. Two-way radio systems of today are not as cut and dry as they were back in the 1980's and it's almost a crying shame because with all of these "advancements in technology" and additional frequency bands we have less interoperability today than we did back then. County and State agencies have been backed in the corner by the FCC to do something because of rebanding and most local and state governments have done like most government agencies do best and have waited to the last minute to do something about this mandate. Now with less than 24 months to the deadline they have made narrowbanding an "emergency" even though they have had years to accomplish this and radio vendors have been taking advantage of this situation with scare tactics, stretched truths, myths and lies. This is only going to make the situation even worse in the end because all-in-all the taxpayers are paying for it more than once. Many agencies have been coerced in to signing a contract for a multi-million dollar P25 System with promises of interoperability and "not having to worry about rebanding existing VHF and UHF Systems because it will cost you just as much", Yeah, right! It is not going to look good when those fairly new P25 Systems are declared obsolete in five or six years regardless of whether it is Phase 1 or Phase 2, but then again most of the directors and managers who have been making the decisions to purchase these systems in the past three or four years will all be retired and possibly working for one of the radio vendors in four to five more years anyway and the county commission chairmen and city managers will surely be scratching their heads wondering how in the world did they get caught up in the big black hole of the two-way radio that just keeps sucking the bank account dry. We all know other technologies are going to surpass P25, if they haven't already, but one thing that scares me about 4G LTE for public safety is the unknown. With the big boys involved in the development and deployment of this technology you know they are doing it for the betterment of their pocketbooks and not the betterment of public safety/homeland security. Again, keep in mind the unknown:

1. How much will these new 4G LTE devices cost? Will they be $2,000 each or $7,000 each?
2. How rugged will these devices be? If these are no more rugged than some of the existing cellular type phones then agencies more than likely will be hesitant to purchase them;
3. What will the monthly reoccurring cost be per device? You know there will be a monthly reoccurring cost to be on this nationwide public safety voice and data network just like we have on our cell phones now;
4. How many different tiers of plans will there be for voice, data, text messaging, etc.?

The vendors must make 4G LTE affordable, dependable, durable and reliable in order for agencies to want to make the jump to move to this system, otherwise it might turn out to be another boondoggle and money pit like some of the "Regional 700-800 MHz P25 Systems" have either turned out to be or are starting to become. Only time will tell.....

 

[MTS2000des]

I Again, keep in mind the unknown:

1. How much will these new 4G LTE devices cost? Will they be $2,000 each or $7,000 each?
2. How rugged will these devices be? If these are no more rugged than some of the existing cellular type phones then agencies more than likely will be hesitant to purchase them;
3. What will the monthly reoccurring cost be per device? You know there will be a monthly reoccurring cost to be on this nationwide public safety voice and data network just like we have on our cell phones now;
4. How many different tiers of plans will there be for voice, data, text messaging, etc.?

The vendors must make 4G LTE affordable, dependable, durable and reliable in order for agencies to want to make the jump to move to this system, otherwise it might turn out to be another boondoggle and money pit like some of the "Regional 700-800 MHz P25 Systems" have either turned out to be or are starting to become. Only time will tell.....

How the vendors behave will be determined by how well the market accepts and embraces the technology, or so I think. If public safety DEMANDS rugged, affordable subscriber radios, vendors WILL meet the challenge. (Hint: look at the wide adoption of TETRA in the UK)

Long term cost of ownership will be the big question. Considering that these future TBD LTE handsets can replace not just ONE but TWO devices currently being used (think your average first responder carries a department issued portable AND a cellphone/Blackberry/Iphone/whatever) this can end up to be a savings, depending on how much the oversight the government has on the buildout and operation.

The move seems to be in keeping government OUT of the private telecommunications business, which IMO, is not always a good thing for end users. The recent mega mergers is proving to be a boon for consumers, higher prices, less choices and draconian practices (contracts of adhesion, usage caps, little or no recourse with over QoS issues, billing, etc). This is the part that scares me about any local government having to rely on a big telecom giant who, for the most part, is in a fairly unregulated business.

For this reason, among others, agencies should NEVER abandoned their already paid for conventional analog systems. Keep them around as a backup. Cost is minimal. "When all else fails" (gee, where have we heard that before?)