Is public safety ready for radio over IP?
I have been listening to the arguments over whether voice over IP technology — or radio over IP (RoIP) as it is also known — should be used in conjunction with land mobile radio systems. The argument generally arises when RoIP is used for the purpose of primary mission-critical public-safety communications (primarily voice).
As RoIP has been proposed, the usual concerns are heard about the basic public-safety requirements such as voice quality, reliability, redundancy, priority, ruthless preemption, etc. I am quickly reminded by my peers that when it comes to public-safety communications, lives often are in the balance for citizens and servants alike.
Recent catastrophes have identified limitations of many traditional LMR systems. There are some advantages to being able to quickly restore communication capabilities immediately following a disaster, and the IP architecture offers an alternative by providing robust choices to help in this endeavor.
Also, most public-safety agencies would love to replace their legacy LMR systems with a new one that has interoperability with every agency necessary. However, the price tag often is prohibitive.
Leveraging IT infrastructure to create connectivity between jurisdictions offers much promise, especially when linking agencies — via cost-effective RoIP solutions — that may have a common response area but are considerably remote from one another. In addition, IT systems being deployed statewide offer communications connectivity between emergency operations centers and public-safety answering points and may add substantial value to effective situational awareness.
As voice transmissions become digital, there is a convergence of voice and data. Those two uniquely different forms of information are now becoming indistinguishable as far as the form (data packets) they take while flowing through their respective IP systems.
RoIP offers much hope in its ability to link disparate agencies and far remote sites in a relatively easy and affordable manner. The other advantage is that public safety can continue to use current legacy systems, and personnel can continue to operate the way they have in the past without changing policies or procedures, except to incorporate the new functionality resulting from RoIP. There is one caveat: RoIP/VoIP systems will require at least one channel from each agency for the purpose of interoperability and for that reason is considered by some to be frequency intensive.
In the emergency management world, this technology offers a vast new ability to link key public-safety officials from far and wide to communicate with one another between their personal computing devices and the LMR. It also offers one of the most affordable methods of linking other agencies or representatives beyond the traditional public-safety responders, such as public works, health agencies, medical facilities, schools and the like.
Operationally, RoIP technology allows audio links to be permanent or subject to human intervention. The level of remote access can be set so a person can listen and/or transmit based on an individual’s preset access rights, and the entire system is scalable. Radios also can be controlled and channels changed remotely by authorized users as well.
One RoIP project to watch is the Regional Voice Interoperability Project, led by the city of Danville (Va.), which formed a partnership with Cisco Systems and Sprint Nextel. Its goal is to improve the communication framework among the regional agencies. The National Institute of Justice provided technical and governance leadership and the North Carolina State Police also is involved.
Is public safety ready for RoIP? The answer depends on the public-safety agency’s perspective. For those with a significant need to communicate with other agencies and disciplines but are challenged by shrinking budgets, the answer is a resounding “Yes.” I believe we must continue to explore RoIP and challenge its evolution to serve public safety. One of the most applicable quotes regarding this IP network solution is, “Build it and they will come.”
Charles Werner is chief of the Charlottesville (Va.) Fire Department and a member of the SAFECOM executive committee.
