Odd... I can see the whole article and I don't subscribe to it. Anyway, here it is:
Commissioners have weighed options on a radio system update for over a year and continue to sort through the coverage details in hopes of striking a balance between necessary coverage and budget-friendly spending.
In their presentation, Capt. James Blanks of N.C. Public Safety and Mike Hodgson, VIPER system manager, stressed to commissioners that joining the state’s VIPER system would allow the county the ability to expand and improve its coverage area while avoiding user and maintenance fees.
“It’s a partnership,” Blanks said of VIPER. “The state brings things to the table, the local agencies, local counties, cities that are on VIPER bring things, and it’s a shared resource.”
VIPER is available for use in all 100 counties in the state and is used as the primary emergency radio system in 39 counties, with 78,000 users across all emergency responder disciplines. Because the system is state-owned and state-maintained, participating counties are welcome to use and even add to the system’s infrastructure free of charge. Individual counties are left only with the cost to maintain their own radio consoles and the price of any additional towers the county needs.
“If you’re a county and you provide something towards VIPER, and then we were to come to you and say ‘well we’re going to start charging you for using the VIPER system,’ indeed you would probably find a good reason to charge us for the resource that you provided to us,” Hodgson said of the land, towers and county property VIPER uses for free.
“We turn it around, we used it, we built a tower, we improved the property, used it for the greater good of VIPER, we’re certainly not going to want to have to pay for that any more than we expect you to pay to use the system.”
Because of its size, Davidson County would likely require additional towers to achieve the desired 90 percent coverage area in medium- (schools and grocery stores) and high- (hospitals) density buildings. Once the infrastructure is in place and handed over to the state, it becomes the state's equipment to maintain.
“Using VIPER simply is like buying a car and driving on a state highway. The car is yours to maintain, you put gas in it, but you’re not paying a toll to drive on most roads in the state. That’s not improving and promoting interoperability for me to assess a fee for you to use (the system),” Hodgson said.
Commissioners remain hopeful that maintaining communication with Thomasville’s radio system is an option for whichever system they choose. Because of the delay in deciding on a system, though, commissioners face the possibility of Thomasville moving forward with another adjoining system. County manager Robert Hyatt warned that it could happen sooner rather than later.
“They’ve been wanting to partner, and in fact last time I talked to (Thomasville City Manager) Kelly (Craver), they are still really interested and feel like it would be most advantageous for them to partner with the county," Hyatt said,"but they’re to the point where they feel like they’ve got to do something, and so they’re starting to have their conversations with High Point. At what point in time they might reach a decision outside the county, I don’t know.”
