Public safety veterans and communications experts marvel at the visibility "interoperability" has earned during the last several years. With the help of the media and politicians, even the general public knows the basics of the problem, usually expressed as "police can't talk to fire".

At National Interop we will point out the obvious: there are at least three significant challenges not yet met by most public safety agencies:

1. Interoperable radio equipment
2. Defined procedures for when and how to interoperate
3. Training for line personnel in the equipment and procedures.

Although every agency faces their own unique issues, we generally recommend the following steps to address interoperability -- while respecting the constraint of funding.

Interoperable Equipment

In the wake of repeated failures of communication systems to provide interoperability between responders at an incident, increased attention (and federal funding) has been focused on interoperability. In the first wave of funding this emphasized equipment, specifically two types of equipment: the interoperability gateway and the P25 digital radio.

We applaud both of these efforts, as they are necessary steps in the right direction. Getting all first responders on a single standard for a field radio (the P25 digital standard) is a great idea.

Interoperability gateways can be powerful tools, and those too are a good idea, but we have also found them to be harmful when not used correctly. More on that in a moment.

The long-term objectives for interoperability include integrated systems that provide inherent interoperability, based on the P25 digital standard. This too is a worthwhile objective, but in our experience is not practical for most of the jursdictions in the United States because it is an unfunded mandate. Simply put, the systems proposed to date are massively expensive and beyond the reach of many local and state agencies. The early examples include New York State's $2B system and Florida's $1B system.

What's the alternative?

IP Radio for Affordable Interoperability

IP Radio is an ideal approach to the interoperability equipment challenge: it is backwards compatible with older equipment already installed (and purchased long ago), it is forwards compatible with emerging technologies such as digital trunking. It can be configured to offer patches between various users, either permanently or temporarily, and it is inherently scalable. The same software technology can be deployed to support a statewide system with thousands of users, or a city-wide system with 50 users.

Just as IP Radio can provide incremental improvement to geographic coverage for an existing 911 radio system, IP Radio can also give dispatchers and EOC managers instantly available talk (or just listen) access to interoperable radios.

We also like to recommend IP Radio for interoperability because it doesn’t preclude any other interoperability initiatives at a regional, state or even national level, but it also permits an agency to become more effective immediately, controlling their own destiny.

Defined Procedures

We know of a number of agencies with expensive, fully implemented communications systems (often on 800 MHz analog and digital trunking) that support rich interoperability … but never use it.

Examples include: trunking systems that support instant patches at the dispatch console by the dispatcher; field radios that permit line officers to switch to the working channel of another agency with the flick of a switch or turn of a knob. Neither is used.

Surely part of the challenge is cultural, but as with any other piece of equipment in the practice of a profession, the use of communication devices demands procedures and training.

Written and considered standard operating procedures (“SOP”) rarely exist for interoperable equipment. The manufacturer's documentation isn't even a good starting point -- that would be as if the owner's manual of a new sedan was handed to police officers as the SOP for pursuit and emergency vehicle operations.

Training

Early federal funding actually prohibited expenditure on training for the new (and often complex) interoperability equipment, and although that limitation has been recognized, even today there is not a single accredited or even popularly recognized training course for interoperable communications techniques used by responders.

While APCO and others have long assumed the lead in training for dispatchers and other communication professionals, there is no training course we can find anywhere on the specific topic of interoperability.

National Interop offers such training.
 

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