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Raleigh, NC - Los Angeles public safety agencies have established a model for working together to achieve interoperability. “Today you are witnessing history,” stated Los Angeles Sheriff’s Captain Robert Sedita at a recent press conference in reference to more than a dozen local, state, and national agencies joining forces to achieve their first public success of interoperability.
The Los Angeles Regional Tactical Communications System (LARTCS) coordinated the press conference to illustrate the strides they have made post September 11th to accomplish a more coordinated response. LARTCS was formed over a year ago with the mission to achieve interoperability amongst all of LA’s city, county, state, and federal agencies. On Friday, June 13th, the public witnessed the accomplishments of their labor when every agency in the Los Angeles area used their own radios, connected via the ACU-1000, to communicate with each other.
The press conference was held at the Port of Long Beach, the third largest port in the world, which offered a prime stage considering that waterways pose a large security threat. The demonstration showcased the LA County Sheriff Department’s interoperability technology as Captain Sedita performed a role call involving the 17 agencies that protect the Los Angeles area. All the participating agencies operate on disparate radio equipment and during this drill they were all able to communicate via the ACU-1000 technology. As each agency responded to the role call, they lit their emergency lighting indicating a successful interoperability drill.
Prior to purchasing the Raytheon JPS Communications ACU-1000, the LA County Sheriff Department received a quote to revamp its’ 17-year old communications system - exceeding 500 million dollars - which was unfeasible for a publicly supported agency. Captain Sedita gathered interoperability information from the Public Safety Wireless Network (PSWN) and the National Institute of Justice’s AGILE program, where he learned about the ACU technology. The ACU technology offered an extremely user-friendly interface that could be used to permanently connect two or more frequencies or on a case-by-case basis. JPS Manager of Public Safety Communications, Roman Kaluta elaborates, “ ACU technology offers agencies a low-cost, extremely flexible communications network that utilizes the existing infrastructures.”
The ACU-1000 allowed the involved agencies to use their existing equipment and infrastructure with expansion capability available when necessary. All of this was available at a fraction of the cost compared to rebuilding an entire radio system. The LA County Sheriff’s Department purchased two ACU-1000 units in late 2002, which they mounted into a fixed installation. The ACU essentially acted as a switchboard that took radio frequencies from various agencies that were routed to the unit and output in a common frequency so that they could talk directly to one another. They also incorporated the JPS VoIP technology to expand their system to a Wide Area Interoperability System to meet the demands of their large coverage area.
LA County’s density of population and disaster frequency pose a challenging environment to achieve interoperability. The county is composed of 4,000 square miles of various terrains from 90 feet below sea level at the coastline to 10,000 feet above in the mountains. With more than 100 public safety agencies and the growing number of federal entities covering this vast area it is not surprise that interoperability was a concern on everyone’s mind.
The Sheriff’s Department alone occupies 68 channels of communications. Each of the surrounding agencies had their own system without any consideration to interoperability. Some agencies worked on VHF or UHF, others on trunked 800MHz systems. A few were fortunate to have a mutual aid frequency to provide the necessary bandwidth during emergency situations but the bandwidth was becoming more limited with the overwhelming growth in the area. However, there was one common component to each agency’s radio system. “Somewhere in each system there is analog audio and that can be linked,” said Jack King, one of LA County Sheriff’s radio engineers. “If there is analog audio, we can connect.”
Los Angeles County agencies recognize that there is a lot involved to implementing an interoperability solution. Each of the involved players must reach an agreement to work together in a cooperative manner regardless of disciplines and jurisdictional boundaries. The Los Angeles Regional Tactical Communications System convened together to develop the necessary large-scale training to incorporate the involved parties, as well as, determining standardized protocols for use during the deployment of the systems. Installing the ACU-1000’s was simply the beginning of a long journey.
Interoperability has affected how public safety officials operate on a daily basis. This was made evident at the press conference and demonstration hosted by LA County. “The bottom line is that we (JPS) provide the technology for interoperability, but it’s the people that make it work. The LA County Sheriff’s Department, along with LARTCS team, did an excellent job demonstrating a cooperative effort amongst all agencies,” said JPS’ Roman Kaluta, Manager of Public Safety Interoperability. In reality, it is that type of cooperation that essentially creates interoperability success.
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