immy Gianato, the director of the West Virginia Division of Homeland Security, looks at his state's new IP-based emergency response system designed to link radio systems with voice and data services.
In this Q&A session, we talk with Jimmy Gianato, the director of the West Virginia Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, about why his division is choosing to deploy the Verizon system, and also about the technological challenges that emergency response systems face on both a local and a nationwide basis.
Last week, West Virginia’s Homeland Security Division became the first division in the country to adopt Verizon’s new integrated emergency response system that is designed to pull all emergency-response radio systems, along with voice and data services, into a common IP-based network. The system, known as the Verizon Communications Interoperability Solution, uses routers and other customer-premises equipment to convert all designated radio signals within the emergency response system to IP. Thus, police, firefighters and emergency medical service providers will be able to communicate, even though they use different radio frequencies to talk through their individual devices.
In this Q&A session, we talk with Jimmy Gianato, the director of the West Virginia Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, about why his division is choosing to deploy the Verizon system, and also about the new technological challenges that emergency response systems face on both a local and a nationwide basis.
What was your department’s need for Verizon’s integrated emergency response system? Can you give some concrete examples of some things you can do now with this system that you couldn’t have done before?
We had actually procured this system prior to Verizon’s announcement and we looked at it for months before we decided to buy it. Specifically, we looked at whether it fit overall with our current phone and networking equipment. In the end, we opted to go with Verizon’s optic system to help us use VoIP to connect our legacy radio systems to our interoperable radio project.
We decided to go with Verizon’s system because it was more easily integrated with some of the systems that we’ve already installed in-state, such as Cisco’s IP-based phone systems. Since we’re already using Cisco routers, then integrating them into a common platform made a lot of sense to us. The system also has a couple of important capabilities and we’re doing some innovative things with it. Right now, we are in the process of planning to connect our state flood warning system to it, so that we can monitor stream levels and so forth. Then, when certain streams begin to rise and it becomes likely that flooding will occur, we will be able to alert public officials to these emergency situations.
What are some things you’d like to eventually do with the system further down the road?
One of the system’s capabilities is that it allows us to run the system over a WAN, so we hope to be able to expand local control capabilities. West Virginia has a unique area called the Radio Quiet Zone, which is about a 200-square mile area where our ability to use radio communications is limited because of the National Astronomy Green Bank Observatory. So those are some of challenges we face, and we’ll be looking to bring those areas within the Quiet Zone into our system. We’re going to be implementing IP capabilities so we will be able to integrate those areas into our system without using radio communications.
How did West Virginia decide to invest in this interoperable emergency response system?
All of this actually began as an initiative to expand broadband access throughout West Virginia by 2010. At the time, we were trying to see whether there was a sufficient demand for broadband to get it deployed in lot of areas, and we determined that improving safety applications to enhance our emergency response abilities would meet that demand. Our statewide communications project is a collaborative effort between many areas of state government, and it’s managed by groups of individuals that represent our state police, fire departments, Emergency Management Service, our Department of Transportation, the National Guard and others. We bring all of these players to the table to have input into this system, and that’s how we want to move forward.
From a broader perspective, what are some of the biggest new challenges that emergency response systems have to meet nowadays, and how far does the technology have to evolve before they can be met?
Well, technology will only go so far for you. The governance of how you use the technology and the training that goes along with it is a big piece. We can have the greatest emergency response systems in world, but we also have to build our training capabilities to teach people how to properly use the systems, how to bring value to them during a disaster. The latest report from International Association of Fire Chiefs concerning digital radios has brought to prominence the importance of getting people to understand how to use these systems properly to get the maximum capacity out of them.
On a national level, what role does the government have in getting national emergency response systems up to speed technologically? What are some of the most important steps that the government should take to most quickly get interoperability between agencies?
Actually, that’s part of what we’re already doing in West Virginia. For instance, we’re already partnering here with FEMA and U.S. Marshall’s services to bring all of our systems together. The new optic system that we’ve adopted also gives us the capability to tie the FBI and state police systems together so that everybody can talk over a common system. We’ve also been working with surrounding states to deploy this system so we will have interoperability between states in the surrounding Mid-Atlantic region. We’re planning to meet with officials from FEMA and officials from Maryland in the coming days, so we hope that these collaborations will go a long way toward implementing interoperability on a wider basis.
