Transition to IP technology impacting command-and-control arena, panelists say

When an alternative service is not more expensive, it often is not available at all, Kilbourne said.

“Not only are the carriers basically transitioning from copper to IP, but they are also discontinuing services out in these rural areas,” he said. “The combination of those two trends are having a unique impact on utilities and other critical-infrastructure entities that are in those remote areas.”

But IP-based solutions offer significant advantages, where connectivity is available at a reasonable price, according to Kevin Sumrell, Avtec’s vice president of utilities and large public safety. In an IP environment, greater resiliency and flexibility can be realized without having to duplicate every element in the network, which often was required in legacy systems.

However, during this transitional period, it is important that command-and-control coordinators use their financial resources wisely to buy solutions that work both with legacy systems and the new IP-based equipment, Sumrell said.

“Your ultimate goal in a command-and-control infrastructure is to be able to accommodate your current technologies but also be somewhat future-proof or evergreen, which allows you the opportunity to tie in new technologies as they evolve,” Sumrell said. “You want to leave that door open to next-generation technologies.”

Public safety faces a similar challenge as it migrates from legacy 911 and LMR radio systems to IP-based next-generation 911 and LTE, according to Walt Magnussen, director of the Texas A&M University Internet2 Technology Evaluation Center (ITEC). What is clear is that public-safety agencies need to make the transition, because its legacy systems are aging, he said.

“When your source for spare parts becomes eBay, you know you’ve got a problem,” Magnussen said. “A lot of the legacy stuff is at end of life or past end of life.”

While many focus on the functionality benefits of IP-based architecture—particularly the ability to support multimedia like text, photos and video, as well as voice—perhaps the most important feature of the next-generation systems is that can be more dependable, if deployed properly, Magnussen said.

“A network can be built to be much more resilient and much more reliable—as long as it’s done properly—in an IP world than it can in a legacy copper world,” Magnussen said. “I know that sounds kind of counter to what a lot of people think, but if you look recently at some of the E-911 failures, you’ve got a lot of single … paths on the legacy technology that are difficult to duplicate.

“And, a lot of it is built on copper infrastructure. Unfortunately, the copper infrastructure is getting very old—it’s aging, and it’s failing, in some cases. There’s not a big incentive for the service providers to change it out, because it would cost a lot of money to do that. So, transitioning to IP and network-based infrastructures ends up making a lot of sense.”