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Talk, and more talk...
Regional issues such as training, protocols and coverage hinder radio-network interoperability |
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Written by Stefan Dubowski
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It was the sort of test no one would have wanted to take. Nonetheless, the riots after the Stanley Cup hockey game in Vancouver in 2011 gave fire, police and emergency medical services (EMS) the opportunity to find out if their interoperable radio network was up to snuff.
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Although police, fire and EMS groups are working to improve interoperability, and Ottawa has committed a portion of the 700 MHz spectrum to emergency responders, local issues, including cost, are complicating the issue.
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Mike Webb, vice-president of technology services with Emergency Communications for southwest British Columbia (E-Comm 911), outlined this trial by fire during the Fifth Canadian Public Safety Interoperability Workshop in Ottawa in December.
Speaking to heads of first-responder organizations, Webb and others from across the country offered updates on efforts to develop multi-service radio networks to support emergency workers and ensure agencies communicate effectively.
West coast
Thankfully the multi-service network did the job on June 15, 2011, when the riot broke out following the Vancouver Canucks’ loss to the Boston Bruins on the Canucks’ turf. Webb said fire, police, and EMS personnel were able to connect with each other to co-ordinate their responses. It was a far cry better than the situation some 17 years earlier, when another riot broke out after the Stanley Cup game. Back in 1994, there was no interoperable radio network, making it more difficult for first responders to co-ordinate their responses, Webb said.
The incident in 2011 also highlighted gaps in the system, however. For instance, operating procedures need to be perfected, Webb said, explaining that organizations have to build certain details into their response plans, such as standardized channels for talkgroups.
Webb said E-Comm 911 now has about half of the area’s firefighting organizations on the Harris Corp. EDACS ProVoice trunking system, initially installed in 2001 and expanded just last year to cover the Fraser Valley. Other firefighting teams haven’t joined the network yet for various reasons, he said. Some find it too expensive; others aren’t convinced of the benefits. E-Comm hopes to increase the number of fire services on the network.
E-Comm 911 is also looking to the future. By 2015, the current network will no longer be supported by the manufacturer, Webb said. The plan is to find a new platform that will last at least 15 years. It should be scalable, enabling E-Comm 911 to expand the network to cover the entire province. It should support over-the-air re-keying for remote channel encryption, and it should provide over-the-air programming for remote radio configuration.
Particularly for firefighters, E-Comm seeks radios that offer good voice quality in noisy environments, and that work well in conjunction with personal protective equipment. “In many cases that means making the radios as small as possible,” Webb said, explaining that the smaller the radio is, the less it interferes with PPE.
East coast
While the Maritime Radio Communications Initiative (MRCI) seemed well underway when Terry Canning made his presentation at the interoperability workshop late last year, a lot has changed since then.
Whereas Canning, the provincial interoperability co-ordinator for public safety and field communications with the Province of Nova Scotia, explained back then that the MRCI had finally closed its request for proposal (RFP) for a new pan-Maritime provinces mobile radio system in October, the initiative experienced a setback in February.
As of Feb. 10, the RFP has been cancelled. Canning said via email that the official word is that “the provinces have decided to withdraw this RFP. We’re currently not in a position to discuss details around the decision, or what comes next, but that will happen in due course.”
Originally issued in August 2010 and expected to close later that year, the RFP was extended a few times as the provinces and prospective bidders exchanged information and fine-tuned the technical details. During the interoperability workshop, Canning said two proponents were bidding on the project that aimed to have New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island use the same system, designed to improve interoperability among police, fire, EMS and others across the region.
Canning said the system implementation was expected to be substantially complete by mid-2015, but in a follow-up interview, he said that time frame may be unrealistic. He explained that Nova Scotia has a contract with Bell Mobility for its own in-province multi-service system; the contract is slated to end in May 2015, but the province might now need to extend it to account for the MRCI delay.
Canning said it isn’t clear exactly how the three provinces will proceed, although he said they’re expected to continue co-operating in the development and management of public safety and public works communications services. For example, he said, it’s likely they will continue to comment jointly on regulatory issues, share infrastructure in border areas and look for other opportunities to extend interoperability across provincial borders.
He said that one of the lessons learned from building Nova Scotia’s current in-province interoperable communications network is the importance of documenting processes. Nova Scotia originally didn’t put a lot of effort into documenting the user-operational aspects of its network and only recently started collecting user-agency procedures, particularly in the area of interoperability. Canning advised other jurisdictions creating multi-service networks to document their interoperability plans from the beginning.
For its part, Nova Scotia has designated a provincial interoperability co-ordinator to lead an interoperability advisory council, which is tasked with advising on fleetmap planning, training, talkgroup naming conventions, user-priority levels, and potential use of 700 MHz broadband spectrum.
Prairies
By the end of 2010 there were more than 400 agencies using the multi-service SaskPower/RCMP network in Saskatchewan, said John Leitch, strategic manager of the Provincial Public Safety Telecommunications Network (PPSTN), under the Ministry of Corrections, Public Safety and Policing.
Fire departments, the Canada Border Services Agency, emergency medical services, police and other public-safety organizations use the interoperable network, which affords inter-agency communication. The cities of Regina and Saskatoon have their own separate networks, however, and although the province-wide system supports interoperability on a technical level, stakeholders need to hammer out details such as talkgroup protocols before practical interoperability is a reality, Leitch said.
Organizations are coming together to address that issue in the Saskatchewan Interoperability Interest Group, which aims to tackle barriers to practical interoperation. The group includes the Saskatchewan Association of Chiefs of Police, Regina Fire Chief Rick McCullogh, Saskatoon Fire Deputy Chief Dan Paulsen, the Saskatchewan Association of Fire Chiefs, the RCMP, and other representatives of public-safety groups, Leitch said.
Saskatchewan also has a user committee that aims to address issues that users might have with the network or with the radio equipment. It’s relatively new, however, and it will take some time for the group’s members to connect with the end users to understand the problems and bring them to the attention of the user group executive, Leitch said.
For 2012, priorities include improved interoperability training and assessing the state of the network, he said. While the system provides good provincial coverage, there are some gaps.
The No. 1 issue for end users has to do with portable radio coverage. With their smaller batteries, portables don’t have as broad a range as mobile in-vehicle units do, and they don’t connect to the network as readily. In some cases, the discrepancy puts first responders in difficult situations. For instance, if firefighters are trying to help a driver whose vehicle is upside down in a ditch off the road, they may discover that their portables are out of range when they’re beside the vehicle, and in order to communicate with dispatch, they have to make their way back to the truck and its more powerful radio. That hinders efficient operations, Leitch explained.
He said the way the network is managed helps to ensure stakeholder co-operation. Each organization involved in building the system – the RCMP, the province, and SaskPower – is responsible for specific pieces (technology, physical infrastructure, and electricity and the fibre-optic network, respectively). That means money never needs to change hands among the stakeholders, Lietch said, reducing the likelihood of arguments over who should pay for what.
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