https://urgentcomm.com/wp-content/themes/ucm_child/assets/images/logo/footer-new-logo.png
  • Home
  • News
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Multimedia
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • Galleries
    • IWCE’s Video Showcase
    • IWCE 2022 Winter Showcase
    • IWCE 2023 Pre-event Guide
  • 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
    • Cookie Policy
  • Related Sites
    • Back
    • American City & County
    • IWCE
    • Light Reading
    • IOT World Today
    • Mission Critical Technologies
    • 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
    • IWCE 2023 Pre-event Guide
    • IWCE 2022 Winter 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
    • Cookie Policy
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Statement
  • 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

Call Center/Command


Dropping the call

Dropping the call

NYC transit police hope for the best, plan for the worst, when using underground radio communications
  • Written by Urgent Communications Administrator
  • 1st July 2007

The Metropolitan Transit Authority, or MTA, of New York doesn’t want to talk about its $140 million radio communications system that is bogged down by so much interference that New York City transit police refuse to use it.

“We’re not going to comment until the police tell us it’s fixed,” an MTA spokesperson said.

Who can blame them?

Hauppauge, N.Y.-based E.A. Technologies, a company that develops communications networks for public transit systems, was awarded the contract in 2000. It called for the installation of a fiber-optic communications network for the New York subway system that would provide reliable radio communications between street level officers and those assigned to the underground subway. It also was to integrate the city’s fire department communications. (E.A. Technologies also declined to comment for this story.)

The system’s citywide installation was completed in late October 2006 — two years behind schedule. It combined existing police antennas, amplifiers and antenna cables to transmit radio signals from street level throughout the underground rail.

It works by bouncing a signal from antenna to antenna and using myriad amplifiers to strengthen the signal as it moves throughout the subway system. For example, a signal from an officer’s radio is transmitted first to an existing police antenna and then to a street antenna, which sends the signal to a main amplifier located in the subway system. There, an antenna cable radiates the signal throughout the subway, where support amplifiers re-energize weakened signals as needed.

But the system hasn’t been turned on yet because the same signal also can enter the tunnel system through pedestrian staircases, which causes widespread interference, according to an MTA report. In addition, the MTA found antenna cables covering 72 miles of the subway system had deteriorated to such an extent that they could not carry a signal. According to news reports, it will cost the authority an additional $36 million to repair.

The deployment was part of a 10-year plan to update an antiquated radio network that often left transit police officers and street officers unable to communicate with each other. Previously, police officers patrolling the subterranean rail lines depended on a VHF radio system that was incompatible with a UHF system used by officers who worked above ground.

Tony Lamano, who retired in 1986 after 21 years as a transit beat cop, remembers when the VHF and UHF systems were being field-tested in the NYC subway. This was in 1965, when the transit police worked directly for the MTA. He carried two radios: a transit police VHF radio and a UHF radio used by the NYPD.

Lamano said that when he worked in the operations unit manning the radio console, transit officers’ transmissions would be riddled with interference or would simply not work at all.

“You couldn’t transmit; you couldn’t receive,” he said. “The officer would have to move over a few feet to figure out where he could send the signal from.”

When he first started out in the 1980s in the Bronx, retired transit beat cop W.K. Brown also carried a NYPD street radio and a transit radio. Brown worked the 3 p.m. to midnight shift and encountered emergencies ranging from routine sick passengers to fires, heart attacks, robberies, murders and suicides. Carrying two radios meant repeating a distress signal twice — once to the MTA and once to the NYPD command center, he said. The hope was that someone received it.

The transit police were placed under the umbrella of the NYPD in 1995, and the agencies jointly agreed to build a microwave-based system that was capable of consistently carrying police signals throughout the underground railway. When the system switched over to microwave, Brown thought “everything is going to be on the up-and-up now because we’ll be equal with radio transmissions with the guys on the street.”

But although it was an improvement over what officers used in the past, the system still benefited street officers more than the underground officers because dead spots existed throughout the tunnel system, which put transit police at risk, he said. Brown recalled one incident when he was apprehending a perpetrator at about 10:30 p.m. and called over his radio for backup. There was no answer. He had found himself in one of the dead spots without the ability to transmit a distress call over-the-air.

Luckily, a train pulled into the station, and two passengers recognized he was in trouble and ran to the token booth to alert an MTA clerk, Brown said. To get the message to the NYPD command center, the token booth clerk pushed an emergency button in the booth to signal downtown. Downtown called back, and the clerk told them, “I think there is a cop fighting someone down there.”

“You could be calling for help and no one hears you,” Brown said. “Sometimes you’re wrestling with [a suspect], and you have to pray that maybe a passenger walks by and you can ask that person to run up to the token booth or the telephone, dial 911 or go find someone to tell that an officer is having a problem and his radio isn’t working.”

The problems encountered by transit police aren’t limited to just the city’s subterranean levels. Lamano once found himself in a tough situation when his radio failed during his attempt to subdue a passenger whom he had pulled off an elevated train in Coney Island for smoking. The passenger ended up pushing him down the stairs, and a foot pursuit followed. He called for backup over the radio. When he caught the suspect on the street, he called again over the radio and only heard a “repeat, repeat” call from headquarters.

“Fortunately, one of the radio cars passing in the area heard the transmission,” he said. “Needless to say, my rear-end was saved.”

The unreliability of radio communications has been a hot topic with officers for decades, Lamano said. It is such a prevalent problem that when training new officers assigned to the transit detail, veterans instruct them to stand in specific areas when attempting to send a radio communication and to recognize that the absence of normal chatter for more than 5 or 10 minutes means they should move to another location.

Ironically, while the MTA awaits police department approval to activate the new radio system, the New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DITT) is working on a futuristic wireless data system for first-responders throughout the city. The DITT awarded Northrop Grumman a 5-year, $500 million contract to build a wireless broadband network dedicated to first responders and other city agencies. Northrop chose IPWireless’ mobile telecommunications system for the wireless high-speed data and video network, which currently is being field-tested in Manhattan.

“This specifically is for city services, such as fire, police and city works,” said Nick Sbordone, DITT spokesperson. “Whether transit will be able to use it, that we don’t know. But we’re not ruling out any applications at this point.”

Even if the data network ultimately is accessible to transit officers, it still wouldn’t solve the problem of radio signals transmitted from transit-police radios that seemingly fail at the most inopportune moments.

“If you’re dealing with a perpetrator, and you can’t move and your radio doesn’t work, you just pray for the best,” Lamano said.

Tags: Call Center/Command content

Most Recent


  • Verizon
    Verizon, Axon demonstrate benefits of 5G network slicing to support public-safety video
    Verizon and Axon Enterprises this week announced a successful demonstration of 5G network slicing that allowed its network to sustain connectivity performance levels for mission-critical video through Axon Fleet 3 and Axon Respond services. Network slicing is one of the most-anticipated features of the 5G standard for the critical-communications industry, because it allows a network […]
  • Cyberattack closes emergency rooms in three states
    Ardent Health says it was the target of a cyberattack over Thanksgiving, in an incident that shut down the hospital operator’s emergency rooms in three states. The hospital operator, which oversees 30 hospitals in the U.S., said the attack was detected on the morning of Nov. 23 and was identified as a ransomware attack impacting […]
  • General Electric, DARPA hack claims raise national-security concerns
    General Electric and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have reportedly been breached, according to claims on the Dark Web that the organizations’ highly sensitive stolen data is up for sale. A screen capture from the Dark Web ad shows a threat actor named IntelBroker selling access credentials, DARPA-related military information, SQL files, and more. GE confirmed to […]
  • More 2G and 3G shutdowns loom in the U.S.
    UScellular and Cellcom recently set dates to shutter their aging wireless networks. The smaller network operators are following in the footsteps of their bigger, nationwide rivals, which are making similar moves. On its website, UScellular said it would shutter its 3G CDMA network on January 14, 2024. “Major wireless carriers have already shut down their […]

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

  • Unfinished Business: Why NFPA and IBC fire codes need to kill the fire phone
  • Driverless-tech liability is all in the wording
  • Is an attacker living off your land?
  • New ThroughTek IoT supply-chain vulnerability announced

Commentary


Land mobile radio (LMR) systems are just as vulnerable to cyberattacks as any other networks used in the public-safety sector. Here’s what to do about it.

  • 1
7th November 2023

September 3GPP Plenary meetings feature Release 18 progress, Release 19 beginnings

13th October 2023

Better technology can help solve the public-safety staffing crisis

26th June 2023
view all

Events


UC Ezines


IWCE 2019 Wrap Up

13th May 2019
view all

Twitter


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
  • TU-Auto

WORKING WITH US

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Events
  • Careers

FOLLOW Urgent Comms ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2023 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.