https://urgentcomm.com/wp-content/themes/ucm_child/assets/images/logo/footer-new-logo.png
  • Home
  • News
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Multimedia
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • Galleries
  • Commentary
    • Back
    • Commentary
    • Urgent Matters
    • View From The Top
    • All Things IWCE
    • Legal Matters
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Resources
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Reprints & Reuse
  • IWCE
    • Back
    • IWCE
    • Conference
    • Special Events
    • Exhibitor Listings
    • Premier Partners
    • Floor Plan
    • Exhibiting Information
    • Register for IWCE
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Statement
    • Cookies Policy
  • Related Sites
    • Back
    • American City & County
    • IWCE
    • Light Reading
    • IOT World Today
    • Mission Critical Technologies
    • Microwave/RF
    • T&D World
    • TU-Auto
  • In the field
    • Back
    • In the field
    • Broadband Push-to-X
    • Internet of Things
    • Project 25
    • Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet
    • Virtual/Augmented Reality
    • Land Mobile Radio
    • Long Term Evolution (LTE)
    • Applications
    • Drones/Robots
    • IoT/Smart X
    • Software
    • Subscriber Devices
    • Video
  • Call Center/Command
    • Back
    • Call Center/Command
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • NG911
    • Alerting Systems
    • Analytics
    • Dispatch/Call-taking
    • Incident Command/Situational Awareness
    • Tracking, Monitoring & Control
  • Network Tech
    • Back
    • Network Tech
    • Interoperability
    • LMR 100
    • LMR 200
    • Backhaul
    • Deployables
    • Power
    • Tower & Site
    • Wireless Networks
    • Coverage/Interference
    • Security
    • System Design
    • System Installation
    • System Operation
    • Test & Measurement
  • Operations
    • Back
    • Operations
    • Critical Infrastructure
    • Enterprise
    • Federal Government/Military
    • Public Safety
    • State & Local Government
    • Training
  • Regulations
    • Back
    • Regulations
    • Narrowbanding
    • T-Band
    • Rebanding
    • TV White Spaces
    • None
    • Funding
    • Policy
    • Regional Coordination
    • Standards
  • Organizations
    • Back
    • Organizations
    • AASHTO
    • APCO
    • DHS
    • DMR Association
    • ETA
    • EWA
    • FCC
    • IWCE
    • NASEMSO
    • NATE
    • NXDN Forum
    • NENA
    • NIST/PSCR
    • NPSTC
    • NTIA/FirstNet
    • P25 TIG
    • TETRA + CCA
    • UTC
Urgent Communications
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • News
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • Omdia Crit Comms Circle Podcast
    • Galleries
    • IWCE’s Video Showcase
  • Commentary
    • Back
    • All Things IWCE
    • Urgent Matters
    • View From The Top
    • Legal Matters
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Reprints & Reuse
    • UC eZines
    • Sponsored content
  • IWCE
    • Back
    • Conference
    • Why Attend
    • Exhibitor Listing
    • Floor Plan
    • Exhibiting Information
    • Join the Event Mailing List
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Statement
    • Cookies Policy
  • Related Sites
    • Back
    • American City & County
    • IWCE
    • Light Reading
    • IOT World Today
    • TU-Auto
  • newsletter
  • In the field
    • Back
    • Internet of Things
    • Broadband Push-to-X
    • Project 25
    • Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet
    • Virtual/Augmented Reality
    • Land Mobile Radio
    • Long Term Evolution (LTE)
    • Applications
    • Drones/Robots
    • IoT/Smart X
    • Software
    • Subscriber Devices
    • Video
  • Call Center/Command
    • Back
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • NG911
    • Alerting Systems
    • Analytics
    • Dispatch/Call-taking
    • Incident Command/Situational Awareness
    • Tracking, Monitoring & Control
  • Network Tech
    • Back
    • Cybersecurity
    • Interoperability
    • LMR 100
    • LMR 200
    • Backhaul
    • Deployables
    • Power
    • Tower & Site
    • Wireless Networks
    • Coverage/Interference
    • Security
    • System Design
    • System Installation
    • System Operation
    • Test & Measurement
  • Operations
    • Back
    • Critical Infrastructure
    • Enterprise
    • Federal Government/Military
    • Public Safety
    • State & Local Government
    • Training
  • Regulations
    • Back
    • Narrowbanding
    • T-Band
    • Rebanding
    • TV White Spaces
    • None
    • Funding
    • Policy
    • Regional Coordination
    • Standards
  • Organizations
    • Back
    • AASHTO
    • APCO
    • DHS
    • DMR Association
    • ETA
    • EWA
    • FCC
    • IWCE
    • NASEMSO
    • NATE
    • NXDN Forum
    • NENA
    • NIST/PSCR
    • NPSTC
    • NTIA/FirstNet
    • P25 TIG
    • TETRA + CCA
    • UTC
acc.com

content


An exercise in goodwill

An exercise in goodwill

Consolidation of multijurisdiction radio communications can be a tricky business, fraught with political, territorial and technical issues. Who would
  • Written by Urgent Communications Administrator
  • 1st April 2001

Consolidation of multijurisdiction radio communications can be a tricky business, fraught with political, territorial and technical issues. Who would have guessed that the merging of Toronto’s metropolitan area police and fire networks could generate goodwill? So much goodwill, in fact, that the city’s ambulance service would plan to join them as well.

That is exactly what happened when Toronto’s police and fire departments decided to merge their 800MHz networks and share facilities a couple of years ago, said Dan Perlstein, program manager of wireless networks for Toronto Police.

“It was an amazing experience, the amount of goodwill and good wishes from both services, as they came together,” Perlstein said.

Only a few years ago, what is now Toronto was actually six discrete cities, each with its own police and fire departments.

However, in a bid to reduce its municipal transfer payments, the Ontario provincial government forced the six cities to merge in January 1998. Toronto is now Canada’s largest city — more than four million people call it home.

To enable its mission to keep the public safe, the Toronto police use about 5,000 Motorola analog and digital radio units in the field. The Toronto Fire Department deploys about 1,000 Motorola radios, and Toronto EMS uses about 350 Ericsson radios. The city’s public safety networks broadcast from 16 towers over a range of 70 frequencies.

The seven original police departments had already consolidated communications into a multijurisdictional radio network before the great municipal merger. The fire departments, however, were still maintaining separate radio systems.

For the fire departments, the big question was how to combine networks while maintaining their quick response time. Meanwhile, the Toronto police department was busy redesigning its networks so that it could add mobile data communications.

“As it turned out, the opportunity was there to work with another public safety department which was in the midst of doing similar things,” Perlstein said.

“We were supposed to trunk a number of frequencies to gain more capacity. They were supposed to amalgamate their various systems and trunk them as well,” he said.

The combining of the cities wasn’t the only cause for the police and fire departments to work together. The lack of immediate redundancy for Toronto-area 9-1-1 service also spurred the merger.

“Before the amalgamation, the police were handling Toronto’s 9-1-1 service,” Perlstein said. “Should that service go down, or the building be evacuated, the procedure was that we would bus our people to our backup control center.”

PSAPs and preparedness

Performing such a transfer could take up to an hour, though, during which time Toronto would be without a backup 9-1-1 service.

Faced with this situation, the Toronto Police Department began to wonder if there was a way to create a “hot backup” — one that would allow them to keep 9-1-1 operating, no matter what happened.

The answer turned out to be cooperation with the Toronto Fire Department and Toronto EMS. Between them, these two services had enough radio staff to provide a meaningful backup, Perlstein said.

The result was that the TFD and Toronto EMS agreed to jointly provide a “hot-switch” backup for Toronto Police 9-1-1. There would be no more hour-long waits. Whatever happened, Toronto was covered.

Joint training facilities

The next step in this consolidation was the use of the backup control centers as training facilities.

“We’re training, the fire department is training, and the ambulance service is training,” Perlstein said. “So I figured, ‘Why don’t we use these backup control centers as training facilities?’”

From there, it was a short step to merging three networks into one. If one of three services lost its dispatch center, the other two would cover for it while its backup center was being activated.

Consolidation conflict

Currently, Toronto Police and Fire are working jointly using Motorola technology. Although Toronto EMS is committed to consolidation, its current Ericsson infrastructure inventory is said to prevent it from doing so.

“Their radios are just about due for replacement,” Perlstein said. “We’re working with them to figure out their needs, so that we can all work together.”

‘We’ve already saved the city $5 million in capital costs by running an integrated network,’ Perlstein said.

It wasn’t simple to amalgamate Toronto’s police and fire networks. For one thing, the two departments had to coordinate their response areas so that the joint network would serve fire and police equally. “The main issue here is that it’s got to be a win-win situation,” Perlstein said.

There was also the issue of who would run what. As it turned out, the Toronto Police Department already had a large maintenance facility, so the department took responsibility for maintaining and supporting the physical plant. Meanwhile, the TFD took on the lion’s share of infrastructure administration to balance the load.

Pooling police and fire bandwidth was another area of cooperation. “We chipped in a number of frequencies consistent with our traffic, and they did likewise,” Perlstein said. The same was the case for towers; everyone shared what they had.

The final issue was “culture.” Anyone who has been around police and fire employees know that the two operate in separate worlds, with different ways of doing things. Making the two meet was no easy task. However, goodwill went a long way in solving these problems.

Savings through efficiency

Since Toronto’s police and fire departments starting working together a year ago, the savings have started piling up.

“We’ve already saved the city $5 million in capital costs by running an integrated network,” Perlstein said.

It used to cost about $700,000 a year to run both departments’ radio networks. Today, the price range is closer to $345,000 to $415,000 annually, including the improvements in 9-1-1 efficiency.

Commitment to consolidation

This amalgamation resulted in better service and lower costs. It didn’t cause friction between its partners. No one is more amazed that Dan Perlstein. Even a year after the event, he can’t believe how well it has all gone. What has been a nightmare elsewhere has proven to be a dream in Toronto.

“There was a lot of willingness on all sides to make this work,” Perlstein said.


Careless is a freelance telecommunications journalist based in Ottawa, ON, Canada. His email address is [email protected].

Tags: content

Most Recent


  • An exercise in goodwill
    Newscan: Securing the Internet of Things is quite a challenge
    Also: EWA requests dismissal of 900 MHz applications; TIA names tech and policy priorities for 2014; IJIS Institute names Shumate Award winner; App makes bus waits more tolerable; a Blackberry comeback may be in the offing.
  • An exercise in goodwill
    Newscan: FCC certifies Carlson Wireless's white-space radio
    Also: Congress looks to revamp telecom law; Obama to place some restraints on surveillance; IEEE to study spectrum-occupancy sensing for white-spaces broadband; Major Swedish transport operator opts for Sepura TETRA radios; RFMD to partner on $70 million next-generation power grid project; NENA opens registratiuon for "911 Goes to Washington."
  • An exercise in goodwill
    Newscan: A look at the critical job of 911 dispatchers
    Also: NYC launches website for tracking 911 response times; Oregon implements 911 on pre-paid cell phones; LightSquared wants to keep spectrum assets; Harris receives multiple government orders; FCC extends rebanding financial reconciliation deadline; Zetron gear at core of communications system upgrade; Ritron debuts wireless access control system; EWA seeks policy review of VHF vehicular repeater system deployments.
  • An exercise in goodwill
    Newscan: Average peak data rates of 144 MB/s average realized in tests with CAT 4 LTE device
    Also: Verizon, T-Mobile to swap unused spectrum to improve coverage; Internet giants oppose surveillance--but only when the government does it; FCC Chairman says incentive auction will be delayed until middle of 2015; FCC chair announces staff appointments; Alcatel-Lucent names Tim Krause as chief marketing officer; New Jersey county deploys TriTech CAD system; Toronto airport deploys 26-position Zetron console system;

Leave a comment Cancel reply

To leave a comment login with your Urgent Comms account:

Log in with your Urgent Comms account

Or alternatively provide your name, email address below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • RugGear: Contributing to the future of mission-critical broadband communication review and market vision
  • Photo gallery: 2014 Communications Marketing Conference (CMC) in Tucson
  • An exercise in goodwill
    Top 5 Stories - Week of Sept. 22
  • An exercise in goodwill
    RCA plans to expand this year's Technical Symposium

Commentary


LTE and liability: Why the fire service must move forward with digital incident command

  • 2
6th May 2022

Partnership and collaboration must be the foundation for emergency communications

18th April 2022

FirstNet success means no hypothetical ‘shots’ need to be fired, Swenson says

22nd February 2022
view all

Events


UC Ezines


IWCE 2019 Wrap Up

13th May 2019
view all

Twitter


UrgentComm

Southern Linc official discusses MCPTT migration, interoperability with new partner Catalyst dlvr.it/SSr8VD

25th June 2022
UrgentComm

Newscan: NYPD’s bomb-sniffing dogs get a high-tech upgrade to keep city safe dlvr.it/SSpSD1

25th June 2022
UrgentComm

Chinese APT group likely using ransomware attacks as cover for IP theft dlvr.it/SSmJNm

24th June 2022
UrgentComm

AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile tout Z-axis support for 911 dlvr.it/SSkGxK

23rd June 2022
UrgentComm

California grants first permit to test AVs using only Lidar sensing dlvr.it/SSkG7x

23rd June 2022
UrgentComm

Buying smart solutions: Technology is now part of (almost) every government purchase dlvr.it/SSk77q

23rd June 2022
UrgentComm

France preparing to launch public-safety broadband network, official says dlvr.it/SSh12p

23rd June 2022
UrgentComm

Newscan: Law-enforcement radios failed during Uvalde school mass shooting, Texas official says dlvr.it/SSf9vM

22nd June 2022

Newsletter

Sign up for UrgentComm’s newsletters to receive regular news and information updates about Communications and Technology.

Expert Commentary

Learn from experts about the latest technology in automation, machine-learning, big data and cybersecurity.

Business Media

Find the latest videos and media from the market leaders.

Media Kit and Advertising

Want to reach our digital and print audiences? Learn more here.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • American City & County
  • IWCE
  • Light Reading
  • IOT World Today
  • Mission Critical Technologies
  • Microwave/RF
  • T&D World
  • TU-Auto

WORKING WITH US

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Events
  • Careers

FOLLOW Urgent Comms ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookies Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2022 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.
This website uses cookies, including third party ones, to allow for analysis of how people use our website in order to improve your experience and our services. By continuing to use our website, you agree to the use of such cookies. Click here for more information on our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.
X