Solution Overview
Communications interoperability has been a thorn in the side of public safety for a long time. This post is a recap of an interview I did recently with James Mustarde, Marketing Director, from Twisted Pair Solutions. He might be able to pull that thorn out for you.
The need to talk to people is all too apparent. Fire needs to talk to police, who need to talk to local security, and the State Patrol needs to get in on the conversation, and maybe a neighboring jurisdiction or two. And this is just for the day-to-day incidents. When the big one roles in it gets exponentially worse. This is where WAVE comes in.
“WAVE lets you create a truly unified critical-communications solution that provides users the secure access to people, information and systems that are critical to their activities. With WAVE you can share voice, data, video, and radio on any network. It means you can talk to just about anyone on just about any device, anywhere.” said Mustarde.
WAVE translates the radio signal and puts it out on an IP network, securely encrypted, onto the internet. This turns your Smartphone into a radio, your computer into a radio, your landline into a radio. “This isn’t a new concept”, adds Mustarde. “The military has been using WAVE for years in critical warfighter communications from the frontline to the Pentagon. It’s proved itself in battle.”
A wave of new technologies may transform public safety communications. Mustarde said that “with a WAVE solution you can leverage consumer devices and technology that is readily available and less expensive than other ways of communicating. WAVE can turn your smartphone into a radio, providing an alternative, less expensive option to single-function devices in non-critical situations.”
WAVE on a Blackberry
WAVE is currently used by the Washington Emergency Management Department, the Olympic Public Safety Communications Advisory Network (OPSCAN) and is deployed in many regional incident response vehicles. WAVE is also extensively deployed by all branches of the U.S. military and by many federal agencies.
What Sets Them Apart
“What makes WAVE different”, Mustarde says, “is that we are purely software. There is no need for new or proprietary hardware outside of commercially available radio gateways.” This makes a WAVE solution a lot less expensive than adding or replacing radios. It also means this thing will scale. Some clients have literally thousands of users on the system.
Client Quote
Mustarde’s favorite client quote was from a Special Operations officer who said “it transforms the way we get stuff done.”
Price Tag
This is always a very ballpark figure given the flexibility of the system and it really isn’t fair to James to pin him to a number, but you can probably get 5 agencies all talking to each other for less than $50,000 (under $10,000 each if you share the cost).
Final Thoughts
Do you ever feel like your radio company is holding you hostage or picking your pocket? Do you ever feel like you are back in the dark ages when you have to send runners to the other agency with hand written notes? Would you like to wave good-bye to the frustration that comes from talking to the brick?
In public safety, if you want to get stuff done you have to be able to talk to whoever you need to when you need to from whatever device you have in your hand. Take WAVE for a ride. It just might solve some thorny communications problems for you.
Regards,
Bob
Company Facts
Company Name: Twisted Pair Solutions, Inc
HQ City & ST: Seattle, WA
# Employees: 50+
Other locations: UK, Australia
Phone: 206-442-2101 (main)
Email: sales@twistpair.com
Web site: www.twistpair.com
Clients: 1,000’s
Years in business: 10+
