Feb 6, 2009 2:02 PM, By Donny Jackson

Despite the struggles that Tyco Electronics M/A-COM has had with the state of New York, the vendor’s OpenSky system is working well in Pennsylvania, even though the statewide system is still not complete, according to a state official.

Last year, the Pennsylvania system boasted 17,500 radios on the network and supported 39 million push-to-talk communications, said Charles Brennan, deputy secretary of Pennsylvania’s office of public-safety radio services.

“People used it 39 million times last year, so I assume it works,” Brennan said during an interview with Urgent Communications, noting that the network also provides low-speed data and network-based interoperability.

However, the system is not finished yet, even though the money for the project was allocated in 1996 and construction began in 2001. While all 235 high-profile towers in the system have been completed, original estimates that an additional 500 cell sites would provide the needed coverage have proved inadequate, Brennan said. Instead, it likely will take 700-800 cell sites to finish the project.

Brennan said the disparity was caused by language in the original contract, which stated that the radio network would provide coverage to 95% of the land mass of the 45,000-square-mile state, with no roadway-coverage requirement. This proved to be problematic in the northern part of the state, which is very rugged and mountainous, he said.

“What we decided to do here is to go back and make sure we hit 95% roadway coverage—that is not in the contract, but we had no other choice,” Brennan said. “If we just built to the specifications in the contract, no one would use our radio system in the northern part of the state; it would be virtually unusable.

“Everybody today that puts out an RFP includes a land-mass coverage figure and roadway-coverage figure. Pennsylvania never had that in its original requirements. I can’t blame M/A-COM for that; they were just responding to the RFP.”

Brennan credited M/A-COM for being willing to change the scope of the project “for the good of Pennsylvania.”

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