Cloud-based solution provides vital flexibility

Ultimately, the EMD chose a cloud-based, unified group communications platform that it integrated into OPSCAN. It found success with this software solution, which it used to link the myriad communications systems being used on the peninsula together. Given its success, the EMD sought to implement the solution on a larger, statewide scale, which it did by integrating the solution into OSCCR in 2008.

With a dispatch application, the EMD is able to manage its entire statewide network from 14 industry-standard laptop PCs, which are linked via the state’s existing communications networks. Although the EMD’s communications are based primarily out of its emergency operations center, the flexibility provided by a cloud-based solution means that it can easily move dispatch functionality to anywhere in the state—a critical factor for the EMD, whose disaster-planning scenarios include a catastrophic earthquake in the Cascadia region, which is home to the EMD’s main operations center.

For the EMD, interoperability means more than just the ability to have multiple radio systems communicate with each other; it also means that emergency personnel can access the OSCCR channel via virtually any device—smartphones, tablets, desktop PCs or LMR handsets among them. In an emergency scenario, dispatchers can alert personnel across all agencies, at headquarters or in the field, to join the OSCCR network for response coordination, without the limitations caused by device or network incompatibility.

Approaching its sixth year of using this technology, the EMD is now looking for ways to expand its use into other systems such as its Comprehensive Emergency Management Network (CEMNET), which is used as a backup communication link by agencies such as the National Weather Service and the state’s ferry system.

The benefits of this type of flexibility and interoperability are gaining attention. Recent response efforts in Washington, D.C.—at the tragic Navy Yard shootings and more recently at a security situation at the U.S. Capitol—have received negative attention as disparate organizations were not able to speak to one another to coordinate their response. This type of dysfunction is exactly what organizations like the EMD are avoiding by empowering teams to use the best device or any network that fits the job at hand.

While some organizations may feel anxiety as the dawn of the FirstNet network approaches, the Washington State EMD has embraced digital devices and networks as part of its communications infrastructure for nearly half a decade. Well before FirstNet was even conceived, the EMD saw the benefits of voice communications over broadband networks and the extension of critical communications beyond just two-way radios. Organizations like this will be the most prepared to take advantage of the FirstNet network, as well as the inevitable transition to the use of data networks, smartphones, tablets and more that is coming to public-safety communications—and which in some places already is well underway.

Tom Guthrie is president and CEO of Seattle-based Twisted Pair Solutions.