Georgia county doubles radio capacity with P25 Phase 2 system from Motorola Solutions

Cobb County signed the $13 million contract with Motorola Solution to upgrade its six-site P25 system to Phase 2 in December 2013, after considerable pre-planning effort, Roberts said. That work paid off 11 months later when the project was accepted, she said.

“This was totally smooth compared to some past software updates that we’d gone through, so I was very pleased,” Roberts said.

In addition, Cobb County plans to bolster the coverage provided by the LMR system by adding three additional towers to “fill [coverage] gaps that have existed for years,” Roberts said.

To pay for the system, Cobb County used funds collected from system users for the planned upgrade during the past decade, Robert said.

“We collect the anticipated replacement dollars every year,” she said. “We anticipate that the life expectancy of your core equipment is 10 years. We take what we paid for 10 years ago, divide it up by 10 and subdivide that cost amongst the users. So, we’re collecting to replace the core infrastructure at the end of 10 years, so we already had a bucket of money.”

Separately, voters in Cobb County approved a 1-cent special purpose local option sales tax (SPLOST) to pay for an upgrade of its 74-site emergency-warning siren system, Roberts said.