As communications technology advances, the public safety community is looking to capitalize on the changes.
“By history and tradition, we have many thousands of separate communications systems for emergency responders in this country,” said Jon Peha, professor of electrical engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University and former chief technologist with the FCC. “That means we have systems that don’t interoperate, are more prone to failure when we need them, and are vastly more expensive than they ought to be. We pay more and get less.”
Traditional public safety communication systems don’t provide services that commercial users take for granted, such as data communication and the ability to send pictures or video.
A system tested in August at the 2012 Republican National Convention (RNC) in the Tampa and St. Petersburg, Fla., area gave a glimpse into the possible future of public safety communications. Public safety agencies in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties worked with commercial vendors to test a Public Safety Long Term Evolution (LTE) network, which ran under special temporary authority from the FCC.
Challenges AheadThe technological advances and plans for a national network do raise concerns for some. |
The partners set up a temporary network that included commercial off-the-shelf technology. A suite of applications provided security and let users share video directly from one smartphone to another, and to see the location of the video on a map. The devices had push-to-talk capabilities that allowed officers to communicate with more than one person at a time without dialing a number. Officers could also see which of their colleagues were available at any given time, said Kevin McFadden, public safety solutions architect at Cisco.
Setting up the network was not easy. It had to be done quickly — although planning started in October 2011, most of the work was done in the few months before the convention. And funding also was tight.
This meant it was challenging, for example, to find a spot to install a portable antenna tower in Tampa. It needed to be in a secure location, preferably on city-owned land. A good location was found at the Port of Tampa, but required coordination with several government offices quickly to get permission to use the site, said Bob Meyer, an executive in Raytheon’s Public Safety and Security business.
Advantages of an LTE Network
The LTE network that was tested at the RNC provides several advantages over traditional law enforcement communications.
Security. Police officers sometimes end up using their personal smartphones to, for example, send a photo of a suspect to someone who can verify if this is the person they’re searching for, McFadden said. This can be risky since the communications aren’t secure or regulated.
Dedicated bandwidth. For big events, commercial services can become saturated and can’t guarantee priority service for law enforcement or emergency management users, said Capt.
Mike Baumaister of the Tampa Police Department Criminal Intelligence Bureau. The dedicated LTE network made sure that public safety officials had access to service.
“Everybody all of a sudden turns their cellphones on and you can’t get coverage. This offers us a way to be separate from that,” Baumaister said.
Advanced technology. Typical police radios offer only voice communication and sometimes very low-speed data communication. The LTE system offered data communication, including the ability to send pictures and video.
In the past, officers have used their radios to transmit descriptions of what was happening: “‘I have a group of 50 people gathering, now growing to 100. They’re moving eastbound,’” said Sgt. Dale Moushon of the St. Petersburg Police Department Intelligence Unit. “Based on your description and their interpretation of your descriptions alone, they would manage resources.” This could involve sending in more officers, reducing the number of officers or sending specialized equipment.
Live video gives much more detail. “There’s nothing like seeing it as opposed to having somebody describe to you what they’re seeing,” Moushon said.
Having a faster, more accurate picture of what is going on can in some cases lead to less police intervention rather than more.
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