Utilizing MCPTT over FirstNet and Verizon ‘best decision I’ve made,' Georgia police chief saysUtilizing MCPTT over FirstNet and Verizon ‘best decision I’ve made,' Georgia police chief says

Opting for an LTE-based mission-critical-push-to-talk (MCPTT) solution and abandoning land-mobile-radio (LMR) technology for vital public-safety communications is proving to be an operational and financial boon to the city of Dallas, Ga., according to its police chief.

Joe Duvall (pictured above), police chief in Dallas, Ga., said the city uses FirstNet PTT—the MCPTT solution from Samsung—as its primary voice communications service, with the L3Harris BeOn push-to-talk offering over Verizon Frontline as a backup. Personnel can access both systems via L3Harris XL portable devices with dual-SIM functionality.

This LTE-based approach represents a significant performance and coverage upgrade from the end-of-life LMR system used previously by Dallas, Ga., police officers, Duvall said.

“[FirstNet PTT has] been flawless,” Duvall said during an interview with Urgent Communications. “We have better coverage than we ever had with our old radio system. Our county should have its new P25 system in place probably by the end of this year. I’ll have access to it, as well, but right now, I wouldn’t even think about moving off of what we’re doing now [with MCPTT], just from the cost savings.

“When everything is said and done, I’ll have about $700,000 in the system, and it has already paid for itself. Just walking in the door, we probably saved close to $3 million, just from the infrastructure costs compared to going with P25.”

Beyond the financial benefits realized in recent years, FirstNet PTT provides clear voice quality to the Dallas, Ga., officers, Duvall said. And the future promises to be even more enhancements, he said.

“One thing that blows me away is how fast this technology moving,” Duvall said. “[With LMR,] we’d only see a real big technological change about every 7 to 10 years. Now, it seems like we’re seeing something completely new every six months.

“It’s making our jobs so much safer and more efficient—and it’s saving the taxpayers a whole lot of money. From my standpoint, it’s a win-win-win situation … This technology is never going backward; it’s only going to continue to get better.”

Of course, one significant concern for all customers of FirstNet—the nationwide public-safety broadband network (NPSBN) being built and maintained by AT&T—was the significant outage suffered by the carrier on Feb. 22. This episode caused Duvall to opt for leveraging the dual-SIM capability in the L3Harris XL portables with Verizon Frontline connectivity as a backup.

“Through FirstNet, I’ve got phenomenal coverage everywhere,” Duvall said. “The only reason we went with Verizon and L3Harris BeOn as a redundancy is the mere fact that FirstNet had that big outage last year. This way, if something went down [in the FirstNet system], we can just turn a button, and a few seconds later, we’ll be on L3Harris BeOn through Verizon.

“We had the Verizon Frontline and L3Harris BeOn by the end of last summer or early last fall. Since then, we’ve had the capability to just switch from one channel for AT&T and switch over to another to go to Verizon.”

Dallas, Ga., also is utilizing a dispatching solution from Catalyst that has helped allow the city to become a primary 911 public-safety answering point (PSAP), as well as support interoperability with the county’s P25 system and other push-to-talk services in the region, according to Duvall.

“Through our Catalyst dispatch system, our dispatchers can talk directly with the county,” he said, describing the Catalyst technology as “fantastic.”

With the FirstNet, Catalyst and L3Harris offerings in place, most of the key handheld capabilities have been operational in Dallas, Ga., for several months. During the next year, the police department hopes to execute a similar transition with its vehicular mobile radios, Duvall said.

Meanwhile, Duvall is enthusiastic about future capabilities, including satellite-direct-to-device functionality that promises to close coverage gaps for personnel while outdoors.

“There’s so much technology that’s coming our way,” Duvall said. “Compare that to a P25 system that’s going to require a 20-year contract, and you’re going to be stuck with what you have. Now, those are wonderful systems—obviously—but I had to look at it strictly a management standpoint.

“To me, it [moving to MCPTT] is probably the best decision I’ve made as a leader. In terms of communications, my officers have better reliability than they had with the old [LMR] system and more coverage—it’s just a better product, especially for us.”

This value proposition is proving to be compelling to other government entities that are exploring a migration to MCPTT, according to Duvall.

“With the model we have, there are a lot more governments looking at this now, because you don’t have the big contracts, and you don’t have the maintenance fees,” he said. “You just really have that monthly subscription that you pay, and your device costs.

“Compare that to spending $3 million [just for LMR infrastructure]. It would take me awhile to spend that much [in the LTE and MCPTT ecosystem].”