dailywireless.org » New York’s $2B Statewide Network Close to Canceling

New York’s $2B Statewide Network Close to Canceling

State officials are close to canceling New York’s $2 billion Statewide Wireless Network contract, reports the NY Times. The $2 billion project was contingent upon the system passing a series of communications tests.

In August, a round of tests found 19 different flaws and the state indicated it would not expand the system if it didn’t pass one last round of reviews last fall. When the network failed to pass thoses tests, the state gave M/A-COM 45 days to fix the problems.

State officials were said to be determined to shut down the project because it was unclear that M/A-COM’s system would ever work as expected. A major problem has been the difficulty and unanticipated cost of installing radio towers in remote, mountainous areas, according to the officials and technical experts, who spoke anonymously to the NY Times.

If the state does not accept the first phase of the SWN network, it has the right to nix the $2 billion contract and not pay any money to the company, which already has spent more than $50 million on the project and has secured a $100 million performance bond for the project, which is believed to be the largest Land Mobile Radio (LMR) contract in U.S. history.

To finish the project, state officials decided that considerably more money would have to be spent at a time when the state is expected to have large budget deficits. At the same time, the state cannot embark on a new network project, no matter what the cost, until it untangles itself from its current contract, one state official said.

M/A-COM, a subsidiary of Tyco Electronics, sent the state a letter on Friday threatening to sue if officials follow through on their plan to shut down the projec.

M/A-COM spokesman Steve Frackleton said in an interview with a local paper that the problems with the system are akin to typical growing pains.

“For a system this size, yes, we’re in the middle of a typical implementation program,” he said. M/A-COM technicians are working to identify and develop solutions for any problems with the new system, Frackleton said.

Lawyers from Weil, Gotshal & Manges, the firm representing M/A-COM, said in their letter that it was “patently obvious” that the state was determined to cancel the contract because of political and financial pressure and was using technical issues as a pretext for the cancellation.

The State Office for Technology, which has overseen the network’s construction since 2005, “has acted in bad faith throughout the past year” and has made “defamatory and untrue statements regarding M/A-COM’s performance under the contract,” the letter said.

During an 11-day test period in July, 2008, the network was found to be inoperable for nearly 44 hours, far more than the 53 minutes of downtime per year authorized by the state.

On Aug. 29, New York CIO Melodie Mayberry-Stewart wrote a letter (pdf) declaring M/A-COM in default of its contract to build the statewide network, noting that July tests in the first buildout area—Erie County and Chautauqua County—demonstrated the system performance to be “unsatisfactory and unacceptable,” even though M/A-COM had certified the system as ready for testing.

The largest technology contract in state history, the network has had problems from the start, according to state officials. The original plan, conceived after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was designed to link emergency agencies from the tip of Long Island to Niagara Falls via a series of radio towers. The network was meant to cover 95 percent of New York’s area and 97 percent of its roadways, including some of the most remote parts of the state.

The Office for Technology is looking at other methods, including Internet-based communications and cellphone technology, that are said to be more cost-effective and could provide more reliable and cheaper service than the radio technology called for in the original contract.

New York’s ambitious effort utilized Project 25 two-way radios and tied them together via the internet. It was a model for other projects such as Oregon’s Statewide wireless system. Oregon’s 700 MHz network plan (pdf) for public safety users, for example, is estimated to cost $600-$700 million.

But interoperatibily of voice traffic is only part of the problem. Money has to be found to build the network and buy the radios. Critics said the whole idea was flawed. Not only are the P-25 radios too expensive ($3,500-$5,000), the 9.6Kbps data speed was too slow - it couldn’t effectively send photos or maps. A parallel broadband network would have to be built.

But if the NY State wireless network is flawed, perhaps that raises questions about the nation-wide federal IWN project for federal law enforcement agencies. MA/COM and Verizon have a piece of that action, too.

Other states seemed to be marching in lockstep to the P-25 interoperability template, which was drawn up ten years ago. But times and needs change.

New Yorkers now have a state-wide 700 Mhz radio network that’s in trouble and a proprietary, city-wide broadband network tied to a vendor in financial difficulty, IPWireless. Sprint plans to provide blanket Mobile WiMAX coverage throughout NY City on an adjacent 2.5 GHz band this year — at no cost to taxpayers.

Nevertheless, New York City decided to build a dedicated, proprietary broadband wireless system for public safety. Homeland security paid the tab.

IPWireless re-emerged as an independent company after spending 19 months under the wing of NextWave Wireless. NextWave sold 75 percent of its IPWireless holdings after acquiring the firm for $100 million. These funds were intended to put NextWave on a secure financial footing.

IPWireless won the contract for New York City’s $500 million public service network. NextWave Wireless’ TD-CMDA Mobile Broadband, which is nearing completion, will be incompatible with just about everything when (or if) it finally launches.

The proprietry system, developed by IP Wireless, will install about 400 cellular antennas covering 95 percent of the city. The network, known as Nycwin, was built by Northrop Grumman (pdf) and was to be completed by summer’s end using “free” (Homeland Security) money.

It supports the international 3GPP TD-CDMA standard (wikipedia) on the 2.5 Ghz band. It’s a CDMA standard, but uses only one channel (TDD). It uses Wide channels (5 and 10 MHz), for higher data rates. No voice.