Oh, how I wish this was a reality! Has anyone else been having trouble with the signal strength on the EDACS system? I do not know which site I am getting but, sometimes the signals are barely readable. IE today New Windsor was down in the noise.
Funny you mention faith. I keep hearing the slightest of murmurs that certain ambulance corps should break away from Orange 9-1-1 and form a consortium similar to NWBCD, MICCom, or REMCS. to handle EMS dispatch and response. I wouldn't hold my breath, as there are other steps these corps can take to rectify their particular problems with the current VHF system and anticipated problems with the future 700 MHz system, but one can dream - can't they?The “plan” is for all of Police, Fire and EMS.
The “problem” is they keep moving the goal posts and a lot of agencies don’t have faith in the County, especially the agencies that have their own dispatch. Some of them have already renewed contracts with vendors past the latest cutover date.
Sounds like a complex system that is a vendors dream sale. Complex systems have a lot of failures and are very expensive to keep operating. Reminds me of a old saying "LET THE BUYER BEWARE"
Frankly, you're very correct. It IS a complex system and would be a vendors dream sale. With that said, it was also a dream purchase! Having EVERYONE in the County on the same platform of radio system has proven itself many times in the short 5 years that Rockland has had their system on line.
Compared to where we came from, I wouldn't trade it for anything!
With regard to Orange County's progress, I think people should be a little less critical and a little more patient. It's easy for us to sit behind our keyboards and trash things. But, building one of these systems for an entire County is a major undertaking. YOU HAVE NO IDEA what it's like to deal with the internal and external politics! Getting the civil work done (foundations, electric, towers,) takes forever and getting leases takes even longer than forever!! Be patient everyone.......it will happen.
The longer this project takes, the more agencies will look at other options for their communications. Motorola now offers this radio network https://www.waveoncloud.com/ and I am sure that NYCOMCO is probably working on their own P25 radio netwrok.
I know that some agencies that are NOT dispatched by OC911, want nothing to do with the OC P25 radio system. I have personally been told by at least one EMS agency, that they are not going to switch to the P25 system. They are going to continue to utilize their current VHF radio system, that works just fine for them.