When city officials in the nation’s capital decided to build an interoperable wireless network for first responders, they adopted an approach that had barely been tested commercially, much less in government.
Washington intends to install a high-speed, wireless, broadband data network capable of handling real-time voice, data and video — the first citywide deployment of its kind for public safety, said Robert LeGrande, the district’s deputy chief technology officer.
There have been only three major commercial deployments of citywide wireless broadband services in the nation, he said.
To get the extensive bandwidth to transmit data and video to first responders, the city got a special license from the Federal Communications Commission to use the 700-megahertz band.
That Washington — or any city — would be ready to move to a high-speed data network for public safety was not something the federal government had envisioned, LeGrande said. For that reason, the city decided to fund the entire pilot out of its own pocket, he said.
“We didn’t have the time to wait for federal funds. The need was great for us to go forward,” he said. “While we were able to apply for [federal] grants, there just wasn’t the knowledge that this kind of network was even possible.”
In February, the district awarded a $3 million contract for a pilot to Motorola Inc. of Schaumburg, Ill., and its key subcontractor, Flarion Technologies Inc. of Bedminster, N.J.
The initial installation will be finished this summer, and the network will be tested during the next 12 months, LeGrande said.
Washington is not alone in its desire to improve first-responder communications. Federal, state and local governments will spend between $1.5 billion and $2 billion annually on interoperable wireless communications over the next few years, according to several industry estimates.
Despite such spending potential, government and industry are still groping for the right approaches.
The slow pace of federal funding, the need for greater regional cooperation and the lack of coordination among different levels of government have hampered progress, said Terry Kees, vice president of homeland security systems for Lockheed Martin Corp., Bethesda, Md.
The wireless communications market “is coming together from a philosophical standpoint, but it … will take a while for it to fully mature,” Kees said.
The upshot is that many new opportunities are pilot projects designed to test innovative concepts and solutions.
Integrators vying for a toehold in this developing market are scouring the industry for new products and technologies, ranging from broadband and mesh network services to instant messaging and emergency management response systems.
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Lockheed Martin Corp. and other integrators with expertise in public safety are partnering with companies eager to bring their first-responder products to market. “There’s good technology coming out of the startups. The key is commercializing these technologies, so that those on the domestic battlefield can use them,” said Jim Kaufman, vice president of homeland security for Ascentry Technologies Inc., a Tacoma, Wash., maker of wireless products.
Desktop in the field
In Washington, city officials decided to adopt a broadband network with voice, data and imagery capabilities after a post-Sept. 11 evaluation revealed significant shortcomings in the city’s communications systems. They tried to reconfigure the network, but it did not have sufficient bandwidth, LeGrande said. At the same time, Motorola was looking closely at companies providing broadband and mesh technologies, said Chuck Jackson, vice president and director for strategic services with Motorola’s Americas Group.
Among those Motorola evaluated were Arraycomm Inc. of San Jose, Calif.; Flarion; IPWireless Inc. of San Bruno, Calif.; MeshNetworks Inc. of Maitland, Fla.; Navini Networks Inc. of Richardson, Texas; and Tropos Networks Inc. of San Mateo, Calif.
Motorola selected Flarion for the Washington pilot because the company’s broadband solution fit well with the temporary FCC license the city got for the project, Jackson said. Flarion offers some of the best broadband service available, LeGrande said.
The broadband pilot builds upon Motorola’s recent upgrade of the city’s public safety wireless radio system. As prime contractor on the broadband pilot, Motorola will provide installation, testing and operations for one year.
The network will use 10 transmission sites to provide citywide coverage for first responders and transmit live images via Motorola’s newly developed Greenhouse video-dispatch application.
The new broadband network will let first responders use applications in the field that they normally must access from their desktop PCs, including video lineups and gang tracking software. It also offers real-time video to police, fire and emergency medical services en route to an incident, Jackson said.
David Boyd, director of the Safecom program office in the Homeland Security Department, described the Washington project as well conceived and intelligent, saying it may yield some important lessons when it is completed. But Boyd, whose office is tasked with improving wireless communications among public safety organizations, said the project isn’t right for everyone.
“A good deal of the project is about the experimental FCC license, so it is not something that can be easily transported [from one jurisdiction to another],” he said.
New projects, new partners
Major urban areas such as Washington aren’t the only ones looking to deploy wireless interoperable solutions for first responders. Many state and local regions are shopping for solutions and testing new products.
In Eastern Massachusetts, for example, law enforcement officials in seven towns became concerned after Sept. 11 about the danger of a terrorist attack on a tanker transporting liquid natural gas in and out of nearby Boston Harbor.
The cities formed the Eastern Massachusetts Seven City Coalition and bought 90 Hewlett-Packard iPaq handheld devices equipped with PocketCop software.
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Developed by BIO-key Technologies Inc. of Minneapolis, PocketCop provides wireless communications capability, including e-mail and instant messaging, as well as access to federal and state criminal databases. The coalition spent $130,000, BIO-Key officials said.
PocketCop gives police in the participating townships access to the Massachusetts Criminal Justice Information System, the FBI’s National Crime Information Center and data repositories in other states via the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System.
BIO-key’s Public Safety Group also provides PocketCop to the Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council and the Massachusetts State Police. All of the contracts leverage federal grants for homeland security.
For its biometric and public safety solutions, BIO-key has partnered with AT&T Wireless Services Inc., ChoicePoint Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Itronics Inc., Northrop Grumman Corp., Oracle Corp., Saflink Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc.
Other companies also are working with regional government consortiums eager to improve their first-responder capabilities. Evoxis Inc., a Pittsburgh startup, in March landed a four-year contract worth more than $500,000 for an emergency communications system for the Pennsylvania Southwest Emergency Response Group, an anti-terrorism consortium that includes Pittsburgh and surrounding counties.
Evoxis’ instant messaging software, Prodigent for Emergency Management, enables emergency and priority communications via e-mail, phones, pagers, personal digital assistants and other wireless devices.
The consortium plans to use Prodigent for Emergency Management to coordinate regional activities of first responders in the event of a disaster. The system will be fully deployed later this month, said Mohan Ramani, Evoxis’ chief executive officer.
The company’s messaging solution recently caught the eye of Alexandria, Va., systems integrator Gray Hawk Systems Inc.
The two companies have formed an alliance to seek opportunities for emergency response in the state and local market, said Steve Komlo, Gray Hawk’s vice president of information technology and telecom services. They are bidding five to 10 opportunities in the state and local market, he said.
“We want to be able to lead state and local governments toward Homeland Security Department standards in emergency operations,” Komlo said.
Gray Hawk hopes to expand its presence in the state and local market by working with more companies such as Evoxis, Komlo said.
“With the rapid changes in technology, you really have to be paying attention to capture a company like Evoxis,” he said. “We are sensitive to companies that are bringing something new to the table.”
Staff writer William Welsh can be reached at wwelsh@postnewsweektech.com.
