The system will not be P25,though the police will have an encrypted talk channel. It will be a 4 site point to point voting repeater system. Police and Highway will have there own dispatch channels wnd the police will have an additional tac channel, fire and ems will still share a dispatch channel and the fire will also have a separate ground channel. This system will be in the 460mHz range so that they can have interoperability with the town of Watertown PD and Plymouth PD,Fire,and EMS. All other surrounding towns are on Litchfield County Dispatch or their own VHF-Hi system so the fire will still have to utilize a separate radio to talk with most of their mutual aid towns the portables and mobiles will also have the UHF iTac channels for statewide interoperability. The move off of the 39 and 42 Mhz channels came due to a radio system which is truly on it's last legs. I personally volunteer with with the EMS in Thomaston and can tell you there have been many incidents where the paging system has failed, dispatchers can not here us on the mobiles or portables, and we have to resort to cell phones for communication between our crews and the dispatch. We have had to call dispatch at the start of shift and give a contact number so if no one signed out they could call us by cell phone to notify the duty crew of a medical call. In all reality the Low Band is probably the perfect system given the hill and valley topography of the town, but Motorola is projecting a 95% coverage with the 4 tower system, our current coverage with the crumbling system is about 30%. The police are already utilizing the system and EMS is currently being issued new portables and pagers this week, with the Fire to follow and hopes of having a complete switch over in the beginning of June. From what I have heard from the police officers they seem to be happy with the system's new capabilities.