New York’s Billion dollar Statewide Wireless Network will cover 95 percent of the state’s geographic area, and 97 percent of its roadways. The integrated statewide wireless radio network (pdf) will provide a common communications platform for State public safety and public service agencies, and enhance interoperability.
New York’s ambitious effort to create a statewide wireless emergency communications system will not include any construction in the protected wilderness areas of the Adirondacks and Catskills. Tyco International subsidiary, M/A-Com, won the contract last week. Tyco’s bid for the 20-year contract was roughly $1 billion. They will use as few as four towers built in the Adirondacks and the Catskills and none in protected areas.
That was sharply fewer than the bid from Motorola which proposed 400 towers for the project. Motorola’s bid was roughly $3 billion.
New York officials said the different approach to building new towers was the major reason for the vast difference in the bids.
In the Tyco proposal, repeaters are an essential element in avoiding the construction of towers. Repeaters are used throughout the country as a standard way of giving greater amplification to the transmissions of hand-held radios.
Some law enforcement officials are puzzled over how the state came to its decision.
“We’ve had a real positive relationship with Motorola for a number of years; they’ve served a lot of police departments around the state very, very well,” said John Grebert, assistant director of the New York State Association of Chiefs of Police Inc. “But as far as what made the state finally decide to go with Tyco or M/A-Com, I really don’t know that.”
The Statewide Wireless Network (SWN) is a land mobile radio public safety system. SWN will be used in day-to-day operations, as well as disaster and emergency situations, to more effectively and efficiently coordinate the deployment of resources of all levels of government. The SWN will coordinate the use of additional bandwidth reserved for public safety. The design will provide:
- A digital trunked radio network for both voice and data transmission
- Autonomous talk groups among the various participants
- Interoperability through special/ad hoc talk groups for large-scale emergency situations
- Voice and data encryption will ensure that public safety communications are secure
The project initially was envisioned as providing wireless infrastructure for the New York State Police, but it’s scope was broadened to include the state’s criminal justice, public safety and transportation functions.
New York is one of about a dozen states that have plans in the works to upgrade their statewide communications systems for justice, public safety, and public health operations. It was one of the first to issue an RFP, and its project “will be one of the largest and most complex”.
In other news, the IBM s Capital Wireless Integrated Network (CapWIN) is creating a multi-jurisdiction emergency network in Washington DC with Jabber’s IM system. The consortium of law enforcement, fire, transportation, and emergency medical agencies intends to eliminate communications bottlenecks that now hamper emergency response coordination.
Using CapWin, the first officer on the scene, will create a file on a laptop for the emergency. As other responders arrive, they will communicate through instant messaging, using icons identifying them as police, fire, emergency personnel or highway safety. As more personnel arrive, they will establish chat rooms to discuss developments in the unfolding investigation. Support personnel not at the scene will participate through Web browsers at their desks.
The RIM, PocketPC, Smartphone, Symbian and J2ME clients are currently available. The Wireless Village gateway will be available early in the second quarter of this year.
At the heart of the CapWIN system lies the Global Directory. This piece of the system is what allows for users to be able to communicate using Jabber instant messaging in a quick, efficient and secure way. It provides a buddy list of all of the available users on the CapWIN system and maintains the availability and status of all users on the system.
Flarion and Motorola are constructing a “4G” wireless data network for safety personnel in Washington, D.C. The network allows police, fire, transit and homeland security personnel to remain connected to their networks with average speeds of 1-2 megabits per second.
The $2.7 million communications network will use part of the airwaves now used by television stations (around 700 MHz). The Flarion system can use cellular-sized, 1.25 MHz channels. It will take at least 18 months to install and test the system. The first tower should have been up and running by April, with the tenth and last due in August. Among those initially expected to use the network are the city’s police and fire departments, with federal agencies and departments from neighboring states expected to sign on as well.
[...] Interoperability between the $10 Billion 700MHz federal IWN network that serves federal agents, New York’s Statewide $1B Wireless Net and the $500 Million New York City broadband wireless network that serves city cops and firefighters could be problematic. [...]
Left by dailywireless.org » McCain Wants Commercial 700 MHz for Police on February 5th, 2007