Panel: Politics, funding are the biggest obstacles to interoperability
Steve Devine, assistant director of the Missouri Department of Public Safety Interoperability Center, said that his state came up with a solution that addressed both the political and funding challenges.
“The state took the position [that] it would overcome the politics with ‘free,’” Devine said. “The state built a platform that state agencies can use for their internal communications to replace a number of outdated systems. And that same platform can be [used by local agencies for interoperability], or they can join it full time. …
“And the state pays for all of that, because we have to pay that maintenance for that system for the state agencies themselves. So, we offer that as an opportunity for agencies to come on—and some agencies come on and have radios that use it for interoperability, and they retain their existing autonomy on their existing systems. So, having that flexibility is a big thing.”
While politics may be less of an issue in the state of Missouri, governance still is a big challenge, according to Devine, who said the issue is that there is little—if any—existing guidance regarding interoperability resources.
“The VTAC and UTAC channels [VHF and UHF interoperability channels] are classic examples—there’s nobody responsible for putting a plan together. … There are no guidelines, and there is nobody responsible for enforcing any guidelines, if there were any. ” he said.
“You have to come up with a plan, and you have to disseminate it so that folks can be educated. … Usage is a big point. The interoperability channels are important, but how they’re implemented and how you communicate that to others is absolutely critical, as well.”
Education is an important subset of governance, according to John Powell, chairman of the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council (NPSTC) Interoperability Council.
“Hand an end user—a volunteer firefighter for example—a radio that’s got 2,000 channels and however many 16-channel zones, and you’re going to get the deer-in-a-headlight stare when you ask them to go to zone four, channel nine,” Powell said. “So it’s really important to educate the end user on how to use the radio.”
While many law-enforcement officers receive quarterly firearms training, the only time they are trained on their radios is in the academy, Powell said.
“That almost needs to be reversed,” he said.
Powell spoke of initiatives in the states of Iowa and Colorado that could provide models for turning this situation around. In Iowa, officers get radio training when they qualify their firearms, he said. In Colorado, a multi-tiered statewide program that includes an interoperability component was implemented last year, with the goal of training 70,000 radio users. The Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) was so impressed with the program—much of the training is available online—that it has certified it as a national program, Powell said.
While training is a crucial element, Hall said that there’s a second, equally important piece.
“You can set [the radios] up properly, and you can train the folks on how to use them, but if you don’t exercise them, you’re going to find out when you’re deployed—when you’re in the heat of battle—that’s when [interoperability] fails. … Training is one thing, but if you don’t exercise it, it’s not going to work.”