Broadband Communications
Emergency responders—police officers, firefighters, and EMS personnel—typically use hand-held or vehicle-mounted LMRs to exchange data and voice communications across disciplines and jurisdictions. But as emergency responders gain access to wireless broadband connections, they are increasingly also using commercial cell phone networks to communicate.
700-MHz Wireless Communications
Wireless broadband communications for the public safety community is in overdrive. The National Capital Region has deployed a broadband network at 700 MHz, the Department of IT in New York City has deployed a broadband network at 2.5 GHz, and a number of other public safety agencies have been deploying 4.9-GHz broadband systems. Couple this with all of the pilots, standards, and requirements work occurring at the national level, and it is clear a great deal of effort is being put into this advancement in public safety communications.
DHS Pilot Project Bridging Land Mobile Radio and Broadband
On behalf of DHS/OIC, the PSCR program launched a pilot project in the District of Columbia to field-test the integration of new broadband technologies with existing emergency responder two-way radio systems. The project, known as ROW-B, will enable emergency responders to communicate across traditional radio and advanced wireless broadband communication systems. ROW-B will also integrate this communication with geographic information systems data, thereby providing real-time access to the locations of resources in an emergency responder’s area.
Voice over Internet Protocol
Manufacturers are telling public safety officials they should use VoIP as a bridging technology to solve public safety interoperability issues. However, many of the different manufacturers’ VoIP implementations are non-interoperable, thus creating additional interoperability issues.
Public safety is making significant investments (from Federal grants and local sources) in VoIP gateways. Serving as a technically-savvy advocate on behalf of the public safety community and with the support of DHS/OIC, the PSCR program acts as a bridge between public safety agencies and manufacturers to help ensure that VoIP gateway purchases support increased interoperability.
We are bringing public safety and industry together to define public safety’s VoIP requirements and provide a forum for the manufacturers to develop standardized VoIP implementations that will interoperate.
