California PSAPs turn to Cassidian Communications for interoperability, efficiency solution

During the past two years, the state of California has been conducting pilots to determine the viability of PSAPs in different geographies sharing call volume, Acosta said.

“What we’ve done has accomplished exactly what the state of California is still testing,” Acosta said. “They’re looking at our system, and what we are capable of doing, very closely for future purchases at other PSAPs.”

Dunn expressed gratitude that leadership within the county was willing to let the PSAPs pursue a new technology associated with the 911 system.

“A lot of credit should go to the forward thinking of our County Sheriff John McMahon and the fire chiefs of the Confire/Joint Powers Authority, which allows our staff to explore the newest and most efficient technologies to enhance the safety of the citizens of San Bernardino County,” Dunn said.

At the foundation of the San Bernadino County linking of PSAPs is a single phone system that is used by all three call centers—a first in the state of California, Acosta said. Although unprecedented, the arrangement saved the state, which collects 911 funding and distributes to PSAPs, hundreds of thousands of dollars when compared to the cost of the three PSAPs contracting for a phone system separately, according to Freeman.

The San Bernadino County PSAPs tested the latest VESTA/Sentinel 4 system capabilities, which include multi-tenancy/multi-agency functionality to be hosted virtually within a single system, with each agency being assigned specific resources, according to a Cassidian Communications press release. This capability could prove to be very valuable in the future, according to Dunn.

“We have quite a few small police departments within our Valley area that are having financial difficulties, as far as maintaining their dispatch center or upgrading their system,” he said. “Now, we would actually have the capability of allowing them to come onto our system. We could host it, it would only cost them the monthly charges that would be worked out between the two departments, and they could begin almost seamlessly.”