Michigan County upgrades first-responder network.
Oakland County is spending $42 million on a countywide communications systems using M/A-Com gear. The system uses 800 MHz radios and includes gateways for interoperability with adjacent counties, the city of Detroit and the Michigan State Police.
Oakland County’s new radio systems will have 5,500 users, and installation is expected to be complete next February.
Oakland County’s need for interoperability with neighboring counties drove the purchase of its new radio systems. Oakland County first drew up plans for new radios after an incident in 1996, when a man shot his way into a Ford assembly plant in Wixom, Mich.
“The plant was huge, with a number of tunnels. We had numerous police, fire and emergency medical services on site, and we couldn’t talk to them,” says Patricia Coates, administrator for court and law enforcement management information systems for Oakland County. “We had two officers shot, because nobody was sure where the bad guy was.”
Coates says Oakland County had funding for the new radio systems and had selected a vendor before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. “9/11 wasn’t the driver for this project . . . but it certainly brought home to all of us that we were on the right track, that interoperability was key,” she says.
Oakland County’s system offers state-of-the-art features, including in-building coverage and more efficient use of radio frequency, which is important given the county’s proximity to Canada. The new radios can work at either 800 MHz or 700 MHz frequencies and can support data communications.
Another feature of the new radios is that they offer back-end integration with IP. This feature allows the county to upgrade the radios all at once in a process referred to as “over-the-air programming.”
“Before, to change a template in a radio or to change a user ID, we’d have to physically touch the radio and hook it up to a laptop. Now much of that can be done over the air. We send updates over the radios. It’s a huge savings for us,” Coates says.
