Florida P25 system slated for completion in 2024, will interoperate with FirstNet

Florida’s efforts to transition its Statewide Law-Enforcement Radio System (SLERS) from legacy EDACS to P25 technology that is augmented by FirstNet broadband service is largely on schedule, with most public-safety users having P25 devices by July, according to an official with contractor L3Harris.

Keith Gaston, the SLERS account manager for L3Harris, said that all of the 11,000 hybrid devices—capable of EDACS and P25 operations on the LMR network, as well as working on the FirstNet public-safety LTE system—for state agencies have been delivered, and more than 4,000 of those have been distributed. Florida’s Department of Management Services (DMS) is charged with distributing all of these LMR-LTE devices to state agencies by the end of June.

There have been some delays associated with “specialty radios,” but “the vast majority are going to be installed on time,” Gaston said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications.

In addition to the state users, SLERS supports the communications of about 10,000 radios operated by local law-enforcement agencies.

Florida lawmakers passed legislation last spring that awarded L3Harris with $451 million in contracts to build a P25 version of SLERS that supports interoperability with FirstNet, the nationwide public-safety broadband network being built by AT&T. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the measure into law last June.

L3Harris was awarded the SLERS contract more than a year after Motorola Solutions—the winner of the state procurement for P25 SLERS—declined to sign a $687.8 million contract offer made by DMS that reflected the LMR manufacturers’ bid, according to letter from a state official.

State agencies receive new LMR-LTE devices and installation via a statewide DMS contract, while each local agency is responsible for purchasing and installing new radios on its own, Gaston said. At least a couple of counties already have new equipment from L3Harris, he said.

Although the new portable and mobile radios support P25, they will operate on the aging EDACS system through at least late spring, when L3Harris is scheduled to begin deploying P25 infrastructure on a regional basis, Gaston said. P25 deployment in each of the four regions is expected to take about four months, so SLERS is expected to be a statewide P25 system during the latter half of 2024, he said.

In the meantime, public-safety agencies will continue to use the legacy EDACS technology, according to Gaston.

“We told the officers, ‘Don’t expect anything phenomenal, because you’re still working on EDACS. It’s still better than your 20-year-old equipment that’s been beat up, but you’re not going to see a lot of significant difference [in audio quality], because you’re still running EDACS.”

For Florida first responders, having a clear technological path has been welcomed by the users, who were in limbo for several years as the state tried to procure a successor to the EDACS-based SLERS—a message that state troopers made to Gaston during his recent visit to Miami.

“One of the comments that was made to me was, ‘We’re happy to have the new equipment. We’re happy to know what we’re getting,’” Gaston said. “They don’t have to wonder anymore what it’s going to be. They’ve got a timeline, and they’ve got some expectations of where they’re going to be a year from now.”

SLERS users need to make manual adjustments on their devices to switch between EDACS, P25 and LTE operations, Gaston said. In certain cases, it may be easier for users to depend on BeOn push-to-talk service over LTE rather than switch between LMR technologies as the P25 infrastructure is installed, he said.

“There are two different ways it can be done, and a lot of it depends on their geographical location and how we have things set up,” Gaston said.

“The most common scenario would be that they would change their personality in their radio from P25 to EDACS, or from EDACS back to P25. But I think that it’s more than likely that those people working in transition border areas will probably go strictly to the LTE side of things to keep from having to worry about transitioning, if they went across a county line that was EDACS on one side and P25 on the other.”

Leveraging LTE is a particularly practical option for officers in the state highway patrol, because they primarily work in locations where LTE connectivity is reliable, according to Gaston.

“We’ve got good coverage on the interstates,” he said. “You know, with all of the millions of visitors that we have in the state of Florida, I think the cell companies have made sure that the interstates have go good coverage.”

Gaston also noted that his personal experience has been that the battery life on his portable devices can be extended by switching them to LTE mode while he drives across the state.

Supply-chain issues have impacted all industries. Such problems have not impacted the SLERS project to date—“so far, we have been able to get what we needed,” Gaston said—but L3Harris officials continue to monitor potential supply-chain matters closely.

Whether using LMR or LTE connectivity, SLERS users will be able to participate in talk groups—the type of interoperability that SLERS has provided to the state throughout the past two decades, according to Nino DiCosmo, president of the L3Harris Public Safety and Professional Communications business unit.

“Interoperability allows all SLERS users to communicate directly with each other regardless of their discipline or jurisdiction, whether it’s a Florida Fish & Wildlife Commission officer deep in the woods responding with a Levy County deputy or a Florida Highway Patrol trooper communicating with a Glades County deputy while in pursuit of a suspect—without the intervention of dispatch,” DiCosmo said during the Miami event. “Interoperability and partnerships save time and money, but more importantly, they save lives.

“We all know Florida is no stranger to large events. I am proud to say the SLERS network has been up and running for the past 20 years with 99.6% up-time—that’s [despite] 15 hurricanes and over 10 tropical storms. Now, with our AT&T/FirstNet partnership, SLERS agencies also have access to deployable vehicles, such as the one here in the parking lot, boosting coverage during disaster or large planned events.”

Jason Porter, president of Public Sector and FirstNet for AT&T—the contractor building the nationwide public-safety broadband network (NPSBN) for the FirstNet Authority—also expressed optimism about the future of public-safety communications in Florida.

“As America’s public-safety partner, FirstNet is helping solve long-standing communications challenges,” Porter said in a prepared statement. “This initiative provides Florida’s first responders with mission-trusted interoperable communications and furthers their situational awareness with rich information from diverse sources.

“And, while commercial networks remain available to public safety, we continue to see FirstNet grow—both in Florida and across the country—because it offers distinct advantages from those commercial offerings.”

Jeremy Zollo, chief market-engagement officer for the FirstNet Authority, echoed this sentiment.

“FirstNet was built for first responders by first responders,” Zollo said in a prepared statement. “The FirstNet Authority worked hand-in hand with Florida’s first responders to build a resilient network designed to help them save lives and protect communities.”