New System Being Tested
By Clarence Williams, The Washington Post
A technology and public safety team has been all over the Washington, D.C. in recent weeks, visiting scores of nightclubs, apartment buildings, offices and other places as they tested the city’s new emergency communications system.
The troubleshooters targeted locations where emergency radios previously were apt to cut out, if they worked at all. Now, thanks to $40 million in improvements, police officers, firefighters and emergency medical crews are getting more dependable, clear signals, officials say.
The system has been up and running since late September. Rick Burke, a wireless technology manager for the city, and a public safety team recently concluded weeks of crisscrossing the city to test it. They found that the changes have made a big difference in signal strength and sound quality, Burke said.
“It’s a major improvement. The city and its first responders are much safer now having a highly reliable, state-of-the art communications network,” Burke said.
District officials are touting the system as one of the most advanced in the nation. The federal government footed most of the bill in an aid package approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The fire department contributed nearly $3.5 million to the venture.
This is not the first time that the city tried to fix the problem. It spent less than $6 million for a network that was put in operation in January 2001, but the system remained unreliable.
Police officers, firefighters and rescue workers complained that poor communications continued to put them and citizens at risk -- on the streets, in burning buildings and even in hospitals. Digital fire radios would “honk out” -- a signal radios make when communication is cut off -- and the police department’s analog system yielded poor sound quality.
“This presented a danger, both to firefighters on fire grounds and police on incident calls,” said Suzanne J. Peck, the city’s chief technology officer, whose department oversaw the recent project.
Officials said the new money was spent to upgrade what was already in place. The backbone of the system is now much stronger: six more radio antenna sites have been installed, bringing the total to 10, in all quadrants of the city. Seven sites are on rooftops of hospitals or D.C. government buildings. The other three are communications towers, including a new one at a police facility on Rhode Island Avenue NE.
In addition, 63 emergency vehicles have been outfitted with equipment to amplify signals. The police department received 2,000 new radios for digital communications, and 3,500 radios were upgraded.
Peck said the city now has “all the coverage we need” and the system is “fully interoperable” for police, fire and emergency medical services workers. It also can link with communications systems used by federal agencies, she said.
Other changes are in store. Metrorail tunnels have never had radio coverage, Peck said, and D.C. and Metro officials have a separate $4 million project underway to tie Metro into the city’s communications system. The Metro project is scheduled for completion early next year, she said.
Officials said the D.C. communications system was installed in 18 months, meeting terms of the federal grant, and the work was done in less than half the time typically needed for a project of that size. Motorola Inc. worked on the system with the office of the chief technology officer and the police and fire departments.
Burke, who works in the city’s technology office, helped run the recent series of tests at 240 buildings in the city. They included a mix of old and new structures, such as federal buildings, the new convention center, MCI Center and schools. The team tested radios from various spots on the first floors and basement levels, calling emergency dispatchers and tracking sound quality and reliability through thick walls and outlying neighborhoods. He said the new system “surpassed” its design standards.
Being able to communicate from the interior of structures is extremely important, Burke said, because that’s where the emergency responders tend to be. “People’s lives are at stake,” he said.
Union officials from the police and fire departments said they are optimistic that the new system will improve communications and be much more effective than the less costly upgrade of 2001.
“What happened last time was the system was built by the budget,” said Raymond Snead of the firefighters union. Firefighters have seen a noticeable change in service since the system was put into service in late September, Snead said.
Gary Hankins, a D.C. police union consultant, agreed that sound quality has improved and no dead areas have emerged so far. But technology “takes a beating” on the street with law enforcement, he said.
“At this point we’re still on the promise side,” Hankins said. “It seems to be a significant improvement.
“We’re hopeful.”