Alaska's wireless net built for emergency

Under fire from oil pipeline problems and elevated terrorist levels, Alaska is benefiting from a new $120 million wireless network for emergency communications that was built through a one-of-a-kind partnership between federal, state and local government agencies.

The Alaska Land Mobile Radio (ALMR) system took a decade to build because of a lengthy design and approval process for its special spectrum-sharing system. Using emerging IP-based standards, Alaska has built a common communications infrastructure that is being used by federal agencies including the Department of Defense, all state agencies and local police and fire departments.

What’s unusual about ALMR is that federal and state officials are sharing the cost as well as contributing spectrum. Federal agencies donated spectrum for mobile applications of the system, while the state of Alaska donated spectrum for fixed communications services. This spectrum-sharing agreement required approval from the Federal Communications Commission.

Federal agencies are chipping in 85% of the cost of ALMR, which is estimated at $120 million with $5 million in annual operating fees. The remaining cost is being carried by state and local agencies.

“There’s a great deal of coordination and collaboration because we all have independent funding yet we’re executing actions that are dependent on each other,’’ says Tim Woodall, ALMR program manager for the Defense Department in Alaska. “It’s a very complicated project management process.’’

Mark Moon, corporate vice president for government and commercial markets at Motorola, says ALMR is a model of interoperability for the rest of the United States. “ALMR shows that joint interoperability can be achieved between federal, state and local agencies working together,’’ he says.

Glacial Process

ALMR has been on the drawing boards for years, with the initial concept of an upgraded wireless network for Alaska proposed by the Defense Department as early as 1995.

“Back in 1997, the Defense Department decided it was a good idea to invite state and local agencies into this partnership and discuss a single, shared infrastructure not only to support day-to-day operations but to improve our ability to interoperate during emergency response situations,’’ Woodall says.

At the time, Alaska’s first responders had radio-based communications based on proprietary technologies that operated on different spectrum. “We had analog technology,’’ Woodall says. “There was no standardization.’’

In 1997, the ALMR executive council was formed to include representatives from the Defense Department, other federal agencies, the state of Alaska and municipalities in Alaska. In 1999, the council released a request for information to industry about the proposed ALMR system.

After analyzing the responses, the ALMR team came up with a basic design for the system around 2001. All the agencies involved agreed to buy radios that comply with the emerging P25 digital radio standard. An ALMR demo was completed in 2002.