Philadelphia Police Radio System Needs $40M Upgrade

[larrymeyer]

http://www.officer.com/web/online/Top-News-Stories/Philadelphia-Police-Radio-System-Needs-40M-Upgrade/1$44542

Philadelphia Police Radio System Needs $40M Upgrade


Posted: Thursday, December 11, 2008
Updated: December 11th, 2008 11:16 AM EDT

JENNIFER LIN
The Philadelphia Inquirer



A series of human errors caused a 40-minute failure in the city's police radio system July 22, according to a report submitted yesterday to City Council by the Nutter administration.

The report also said the problem-plagued Motorola system would cost $40 million to upgrade - almost as much as it cost to install in 2002.

The Motorola system has been hobbled by dozens of malfunctions, from momentary glitches to systemwide crashes of almost an hour.

The system failure last summer enraged Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey, who called the problem "unacceptable." Councilman Frank Rizzo, who sits on the public safety committee, demanded an explanation from the city and Motorola.

Steve Gorecki, an official with the Motorola Network and Enterprises sector, said yesterday that the company would have no comment outside of what was in the report. He said his understanding was that there had been discussion also of upgrading.

"We're deferring all comments to the city. . . . What was said in that report is Motorola's position. I think there was a discussion of a July 22 incident where it was human error. We're not saying the system is defective," Gorecki said. The report states that "immediate steps were taken to improve the performance of Motorola's technical staff," including establishing new maintenance procedures and testing protocols.

The report, written by Frank Punzo, the city's deputy commissioner of public property, said on the night of July 22, the radio system became overloaded and switched - as it was designed to do - from one controller to another.

Earlier that day, Motorola had conducted routine maintenance on the controller. A technician, however, had not entered the correct settings for the component.

"As a result, when the secondary controller was required to function, it failed to do so . . .," the report said.

In the span of 40 minutes, a technician corrected the settings and the system returned to operation.

The report said the police dispatch center was still able to communicate with officers on the street using backup modes. But dispatchers were not skilled in how to use the backup equipment.

The report said corrective steps include:

Revising maintenance procedures.

Training and testing dispatchers to be completely familiar with backup components.

Improving the performance of Motorola's technical staff.

Placing replacement controllers on standby to avoid delays in service.

The report said the radio system, installed in 2002, is already outdated.

The current maintenance agreement with Motorola expires in June 2010. The city is considering an extension, but "it does not appear to be the most desirable option," the report said.

The 800-megahertz digital radio system, which has cost the city about $62 million to install and maintain, is no longer manufactured by Motorola and replacement components may no longer be available.

The city could decide to scrap the Motorola system and go with something else. But that process could take "a minimum" of five years to accomplish, the report said.

"It is clearly apparent that we are faced with a number of difficult decisions, particularly in light of the current fiscal constraints being experienced by the city," the report said.

"It's an antiquated system and now we need a new one," Rizzo said.

Rizzo said the type of technology used by Motorola is still used in other parts of the world. He said the city might want to consider seeing if it can sell parts of its current system to get a better one, "like a trade-in."

[jerkin]

No biggie, it's only 40 million, just raise the turnpike fees again. All, that's right they are already doing that in January. Maybe they could make I80 a toll road, whoops the feds shot that down a few months ago. Just take the money out of the wall st. bailout, it's going for everything except what it's supposed to anyway.

[lildobe]

They should never have gone to a Trunked Radio system in the first place.

Public Safety Radio has one goal: Keep the units in the field in contact with the dispatchers to keep them SAFE.

The more complex the system, the more points of failure there are.

They City of Pittsburgh and Most of Allegheny County run on a Conventional 400 MHz repeater system. Full interoperability (if you just take the time to program the frequencies when you set up the radios), Decent Coverage (Though VHF systems do better in this topography), and failures are fairly rare.

PSP have their new GE/Ericcson "OpenSKY" system... that has more then twice as many transmitter sites in it then originally planned and it STILL doesn't cover the whole state - and it goes down on a regular basis. It's not at all uncommon to hear PSP using their old VHF system once or twice a week.

The legislatures, County Supervisors and City Councils need to stop listening to Motorola's Sales People and start listening to radio engineers - people who actually KNOW a thing or two about radio and how it works - how it bounces, what blocks signals and what is TRULY needed for agencies to be able to talk to each other.

ok.... </rant>

[Pa. Patriot]

PPD needs WAY more than a radio upgrade

[Ed in PA]

Yeah, thats right... If it doesn't work, just throw more money at it...that will surely fix it.

Lildobe, thats what sucks with UHF, it has to be repeated alot more than VHF freqs with these darn hills and valleys.

I have some experience with the county's moto system for East Fire. East Fire covers East McKeesport, Chalfont, Forest Hills, Plum, and many others. Our radios/pagers don't work that well out in Plum for UHF. Many times they have to revert to VHF to talk to the center. There still are glitches and dead spots, but all-in-all pretty good.

EDIT: Now we know where they want to use the extra $6 for the LTCF stuff. :0