LA-RICS P25 system set for final acceptance in November

After more than a decade of effort, the Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications System (LA-RICS) expects to complete the final-acceptance stage of the organization’s Project 25 (P25) system next month, according to information provided this week to the LA-RICS Joint Powers Agreement (JPA) board.

Originally slated for completion in 2020, the LA-RICS P25 system last year was scheduled for final acceptance this month, but Motorola Solutions (MSI)—the vendor building the LMR network—earlier this year asked that the proposed date be pushed to December. LA-RICS officials resisted the December date, and Motorola Solutions agreed to a final-acceptance date of Nov. 17.

“MSI has submitted a request for a 21-calendar-day time extension that moves the Final Acceptance date from October 26, 2023, to November 17, 2023,” according to an agenda item in the LA-RICS JPA board meeting on Tuesday. “This is a 33-day improvement over the previously forecasted date of December 20, 2023.”

LA-RICS Executive Director Scott Edson confirmed that Nov. 17 is now the scheduled date of the final acceptance of the P25 system.

“The LA-RICS system has had numerous subsystems accepted, is working flawlessly, and we’ll have full system acceptance on Nov. 17, 2023,” Edson said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “And we’re in the process of working with other systems in the region to make connections, so they are all interoperable.”

Other key radio networks in the region that could be part of this interoperable initiative include the Interagency Communications Interoperability (ICI) system and future City of Los Angeles Police Department P25 network, according to Edson.

Although the LA-RICS P25 network has not reach final acceptance, it already supports mission-critical communications for some agencies in key coverage areas, and usage is expected to expand in the future, Edson said.

“[The Los Angeles County] Sheriff is 99% on the LA-RICS digital trunked network,” Edson said. “The Inglewood Police Department is on the [LA-RICS P25] digital trunked network.

“Other agencies are in discussions with LA-RICS to transition onto the radio system. [The Los Angeles] County Fire Department will be cutting over to the new LA-RICS system later this year. And LA-RICS is now in discussion with the region to plug-and-play for regional interoperability.”

Final acceptance of the LA-RICS P25 will represent a significant milestone in a communications project that was proposed more than a decade ago and has faced myriad challenges in the interim.

After LA-RICS first awarded a $600 million contract for both the LMR and LTE networks to Raytheon in a bidding process initiated in 2010, a legal technicality uncovered in 2011 resulted in both systems being procured separately.

When the LMR project was rebid, Motorola Solutions was select and signed a contract with LA-RICS for the LMR system in August 2013. Motorola Solutions subsequently also was chosen to build the LTE network, signing a contract to deploy the LA-RICS broadband wireless in March 2014.

The scope of both the P25 and LTE networks for LA-RICS were reduced significantly in 2015—largely by redesign on the LTE side of the project in the spring of that year—in part because of claims of RF dangers from the local firefighters’ union. The 232-site LTE plan was pared to 77 sites and eventually 76 sites. In 2018, the 76 sites were transferred to AT&T for FirstNet, and LA-RICS later built another 26 LTE sites that were transferred to AT&T for the FirstNet initiative.

Meanwhile, the LA-RICS P25 project was reduced from more than 80 sites to its current 58-site configuration, in part because the city of Los Angeles opted to pull out of the regional initiative in November 2015.

LA-RICS officials had expected to accept the finished LMR system in 2020. Early in 2021, LA-RICS received an “information-only” document from Motorola Solutions estimating a project end date of February 2023, according to LA-RICS board minutes.

When asked in June 2021 to explain the reasons for the P25 project being behind schedule, Edson told IWCE’s Urgent Communications, “We were supposed to be done by now, but fires, floods, the pandemic, resources, supply-chain issues and some preventable delays have further delayed the program.”

At that time, Edson declined to elaborate on the “preventable delays” he referenced, but the approved minutes from previous board LA-RICS board meetings revealed several points of contention with Motorola Solutions regarding its performance on the project.