Hayward Rains on ALCO's Parade

[commstar]

......and who can blame them, the costs mentioned in this report areastronomical for a town of <200K population.
http://www.hayward-ca.gov/citygov/meetings/cca/2008/cca100708.htm

Here is some additional background:
http://www.contracostatimes.com/danielborenstein/ci_10401865

My opinion: The smart money stays conventional in public safety. Less consultants, more vendors, not complex therefore easier to understand and maintain, far less expensive, and works better 99.9% of the time. My opinion: Trunking is about empire building and spectrum efficiency - not what is best for public safety users on the street.

I would like to see some real financials on this system, it smells like ALCO uses everyone elses money to pay for thier own radio system with nothing out of pocket. Who says government cannot learn from Wall Street.

 

[gmclam]

It is because there is no real competition

I agree that conventional radio channels are less complex and since they have less components (no control channel, etc) they will be easier to maintain. Unfortunately the days of running cities with 1 to a few channels seem to be gone. One "solution" is trunked systems.

However, government should not be buying stuff that is single-sourced. Even though there may be patents and other protections, I feel that virtually any company should be allowed to provide trunked systems that use Johnson, Motorola or other proprietary protocols. In other words, it's not the type of system per se, but the fact that only one company will be bidding on a specific method.