How to bring flexibility and interoperability to public-safety communications

By Tom Guthrie

When the nationwide broadband communications network being built by FirstNet finally becomes reality, all kinds of public-safety and first-response agencies will be looking for ways to incorporate new devices and networks into their communications arsenals. In particular, the prevalence of nationwide data networks (3G, 4G/LTE and even Wi-Fi) and devices such as smartphones presents a tremendous opportunity for these agencies to leverage new, more powerful equipment for voice communications.

While some public-safety organizations are hesitant to bring devices such as smartphones and tablets into their communications infrastructure, many already have empowered their teams to capitalize on these more powerful and flexible tools. The Washington State Emergency Management Division (EMD) is an interesting example of this.

Covering more than 70,000 square miles of diverse geography, from rugged shorelines to mountains and deserts, the EMD oversees public-safety operations and coordinates emergency and disaster response for more than 50 agencies and groups, including tribal entities, cities, towns and counties. For these organizations, seamless communication between multiple, disparate agencies is the key to any effective response.

The EMD relies on a statewide network, dubbed On-Scene Command and Coordination Radio (OSCCR), for its emergency communications. OSCCR was created to allow for command and coordination during emergencies that require a simultaneous response from multiple agencies, including the Department of Natural Resources, Washington State Patrol, the Department of Transportation, and more. Each organization uses its own disparate communications system and hardware; consequently, the EMD requires a communications solution that can provide a high degree of interoperability, so that users on a wide range of devices and networks—smartphones, landlines and land mobile radio (LMR) systems broadcasting on myriad frequencies—to communicate with each other under the most stressful of circumstances. 

To bridge all of these systems, the EMD began to search for a solution that could take advantage of IP networks for voice communications. And, faced with growing budget pressures, the solution had to be both efficient and cost-effective.  

Dating back several years, EMD officials already had experience with this type of solution when the agency implemented software to improve connectivity throughout one of its smaller communications networks, the Olympic Public Safety Communications Alliance Network (OPSCAN). Essentially a smaller version of OSSCR, OPSCAN powered interagency communication on the state’s Olympic Peninsula, which is home to tribal reservations, the Olympic mountain range and Washington State’s most renowned rainforests. The EMD explored several options that promised to improve connectivity between these groups, including proprietary digital radio systems, but found that trying to move multiple organizations to a single system was costly and could not provide the necessary level of interoperability they required.