Harris County selects Motorola for LTE expansion (with related video)
Motorola Solutions yesterday announced that Harris County, Texas, has awarded the company a $4 million contract to expand the county's LTE network from six sites to 13 sites and to enhance the system's voice and video functionality.
Harris County has accepted Motorola Solutions' deployment of the initial seven-site network, which leverages the statewide 700 MHz spectrum waiver held by the Texas Department of Public Safety. Although deploying LTE is new for Motorola Solutions, the project proceeded without any major glitches, according to Eddie Fuerst, vice president for Motorola Solutions sales and services.
"It's actually been pretty straightforward," Fuerst said. "Nothing has jumped out as a problem."
In addition to adding seven sites, this second-phase deployment will include Motorola Solutions' Real-Time Video Intelligence (RTVI) to enable streaming video to be transmitted between command centers, vehicles and handheld devices. Other enhancements include broadband servers to support broadband push-to-talk capability between the broadband network and Harris County's ASTRO P25 network.
"An LTE solution that would allow us to leverage carrier networks for roaming and that could be integrated with our existing P25 LMR network was an important consideration," Robert Cavazos, Harris County's director of broadband services, said in a prepared statement. "The goal is enhanced interoperability between our public safety and first responder networks and a robust broadband solution for public safety that would carry us well into the future.
"The resulting solution will enable Harris County to provide enhanced priority of services to first responders at a granular level, ensuring bandwidth availability for a given person and situation. We considered this crucial for public safety."
Harris County is not the only Texas jurisdiction that Motorola Solutions has as an LTE customer, Fuerst said. The company is contracted to make broadband deployments for the cities of Irving and Fort Worth, and the company also has conducted an LTE demonstration in the southern border city of McAllen, he said.