Harris Corporation Awarded $23.6 Million Contract to Deploy Radio System in Floyd Co.

[brey1234]

MELBOURNE, Fla. -- Harris Corporation (NYSE: HRS), an international communications and information technology company, has received a $23.6 million contract from Floyd County, Georgia, to deploy a Harris P25IP (Project 25 to the power of Internet Protocol) digital radio system to support public safety first responders across the county's 518 square miles. The ten-site, 800 MHz, P25IP trunked system will provide reliable, mission-critical communications, enabling interoperable communication with local, state and federal agencies in the area.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/harris-corporation-awarded-236-million-contract-to-deploy-public-safety-communications-system-in-floyd-county-georgia-124718103.html

 

[Forts]

Harris has been rolling out P25IP systems in several areas... I'm not really sure what you mean by 'non patented system'?? Thankfully it isn't OpenSky!

 

[b7spectra]

I guess they mean because most of Georgia is Motherola!

 

[MTS2000des]

about time

I like Motorola's Astro 25 as much as the next guy, but I'll be the first to admit the good old boy way of doing business around here has cost us more than we can afford. My county (Cobb) furloughs public safety employees due to a 50 million dollar budget shortfall. Our PD STEP unit stayed PARKED this holiday weekend. Absurd.

In 2005, there was a push by Motorola to replace perfectly good, supported functioning analog trunking systems, including the one used in our county, with Astro 25. The sales force was able to convince the powers that be that it was "mandatory" and "the upcoming digital switch is an FCC initiative" and making the wild comparisons to the then around the corner Digital TV mandate. In the process, RFP's were sidestepped or written so that only ONE vendor (Motorola) could get the contract. Lots of promises made, none kept. In 2011, we sit exactly where we were in 2005, lots of money spent (close to that 50 million missing from our budget) to procure and upkeep (at around 1.5 million a year) for this Astro 25 DTRS. It has no more coverage (and actually less in some areas), no ISSI roaming (one of the selling points was being the host for this huge metro Atlanta wide system, funny that never happened).

I said it in 2005 to a reporter from the Marietta Journal and I'll say it again in 2011 because it's worth repeating: all we got for our money are nice, shiny new radios that don't do anything the old ones didn't. And now we're in the poor house because someone was convinced we "have to be on the cutting edge" and no firefighters, police or EMS to answer those calls because we shot our wad on radios and line the pockets of our friendly vendor.

I've read Floyd's original RFP and RFQ for this system and HATS OFF to them for putting out a REAL, honest and open RFP. Looks like they, unlike us down here in Cobb, will actually GET WHAT THEY PAY FOR. the Unity XG100's actually allow that much touted end-to-end interoperability across multiple bands and systems, and Floyd has the FREEDOM to buy ANY P25 subscriber units they can.

 

[pizzaguy]

Harris Corporation Awarded $23.6 Million Contract to Deploy Public Safety... -- MELBOURNE, Fla. and BOSTON, June 29, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

23 million dollars - for radios to talk across one county. No wonder this country is in financial trouble.

 

[procopper7005]

Look at LAPD, they have 10,000 officers and have never used a trunked system.

 

[bob-the-scanner-man]

Agreed. Look at New York CIty as well. Fire, EMS, and police are all still using conventional UHF frequencies.

Just another example of wasteful government spending to replace things that are still perfectly useful.

 

[jim202]

As has always been the issue, the one that wines and dines the most comes out on top.

These agencies don't bring in an outside, unbiased engineer to look at what is being proposed and just go with what Mother M lays on the table. They even let the same sales force supply the bid specs so it's rigged right from the start.

This is a great way to spend tax payer's money with no check and balance to make sure your getting the needed system to meet the agency needs.

 

[Thunderbolt]

Look at LAPD, they have 10,000 officers and have never used a trunked system.

Agreed. Look at New York CIty as well. Fire, EMS, and police are all still using conventional UHF frequencies.

Both Los Angeles and New York City, have extensive, wide area trunking systems in the planning and development stages. Sadly, the days of these cities being on conventional, non-trunking frequencies are limited. Although, it remains to be seen what direction NYC will be going, it is generally believed they will be implementing a new 700 MHz radio system of some sort.

73s


Ron

 

[b7spectra]

Both Los Angeles and New York City, have extensive, wide area trunking systems in the planning and development stages. Sadly, the days of these cities being on conventional, non-trunking frequencies are limited. Although, it remains to be seen what direction NYC will be going, it is generally believed they will be implementing a new 700 MHz radio system of some sort.

I disagree with Los Angeles going the way of the dinosaur. With agencies within LA County, you have them on VHF, UHF & 800, so at the tune of any where from a half BILLION dollars on up, it seems highly illogical that anyone would even attempt to switch all to a single system, let alone a dozen plus TRS's that SOMEONE would have to be in control of ALL of them in order to be interoperability to work.

New York City? I could almost guarantee to put everyone on a interoperable system will be in the area of $1Billion!

XTS's & XTL's are now old school, you have to get everyone APX's!