more on communication networks for humans

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Gerry Faulhaber <gerry-faulhaber () mchsi com>
Date: September 10, 2005 10:17:20 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] more on communication networks for humans


Dave [for IP, if you wish]--

The comments by Andrew Seybold and Mike O'Dell are very welcome and  
instructive.  Yes, I understand the sometimes overwhelming problems  
of making this all work.  O'Dell is correct that someone has to  
control how the radios work and who gets to speak to whom.  But that  
really is a local issue.  If local gov'ts and counties want their  
fire and police units to communicate, they can make it happen.  But  
there must be the political will to overcome the parochial power  
struggles between the user groups.  I have been speaking with our  
firefighters here in Sussex County, DE, where people take their fire  
companies very seriously, and they are well-funded by their  
communities.  They confirm that (i) dispatch and coordination of  
radios is at the county level; (ii) there is a firewall between  
police and fire: nothing crosses it.  Now let's make this clear: this  
is a Sussex County problem.  It is not an FCC problem, nor an NTIA  
problem.  Unless and until Sussex Country steps up to this and deals  
with their public safety interest groups, there will be no  
interoperability...period.  If we count on DHS stepping up to the  
plate and making this work, God help us all.

My Sussex County friends also confirm that they could sure use more  
radios. But I'm not sure what it means to say that there is no  
money.  There is always money; but people choose to spend it on other  
things.  Our fire company has some very slick lifesaving, ambulance  
and fire fighting equipment.  How come they don't buy more radios?   
Because they choose to spend it on something else.  This is not to  
say that "something else" isn't important; but all life is about  
making such choices.  I don't believe "there is no money."  What  
there is is other choices that first responders prefer.  Maybe  
they're right, maybe not; but there is money.

Problems with having enough channels?  This is a clear signal the  
system needs to go digital.  When the cellphone guys went digital,  
they increased their available channels severalfold from the old  
analog system.  If public safety radio systems were as parsimonious  
with bandwidth, there'd be plenty to go around.

----- Original Message ----- From: "David Farber" <dave () farber net>
To: "Ip Ip" <ip () v2 listbox com>
Sent: Saturday, September 10, 2005 8:20 PM
Subject: [IP] more on communication networks for humans



> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Andrew Seybold <andy () 4mobility com>
> Date: September 10, 2005 7:56:16 PM EDT
> To: dave () farber net
> Subject: RE: [IP] communication networks for humans
>
>
>
> I have several comments about public safety--first responder
> communications since I am deeply involved in this.
>
> 1) There is, in the fire service, what is known as the Incident  
> Command
> system. It says that the first on the scene becomes the incident
> commander, as the incident grows and 'bosses' show up the IC is handed
> upwards.
> As the incident grows so does the command structure, it is quickly
> divided into groups including incident control, logistics, and many
> more, as the size of the incident continues to grow the teams are  
> splint
> into divisions. One of the key principals of this system is that NO  
> ONE
> ever has more than five direct reports to them, if they need more they
> split the command structure yet again--
>
> 2) Public safety equipment is old (mostly analog FM) because these
> departments do not have the money to upgrade. Many of the public  
> safety
> systems I designed and sold in the late 1970's and 1980's are still in
> use (by the way we did install mobile data terminals in those days in
> many cities and counties).
>
> 3) There is a new digital standard for public Safety communications
> developed by APCO, known as APCO 25 and most of the newer radios today
> include the capabilities of both analog and digital communications.  
> But
> since it is only for public safety the prices for the equipment are  
> very
> high. But GSM, CDMA, WI-FI, WiMAX and other commercial technologies
> cannot meet the needs of the public safety community.
>
> 4) Public safety channels are not contiguous, they are in the 30-50  
> MHz,
> 150-172 MHz, 450-470 MHz, on shared TV channels in the 470-512 MHz  
> range
> as well as in the 800 Mhz band. There is 24 MHz of "new" public safety
> spectrum coming (someday) in the 700 MHz UHF TV band but who really
> knows when. The feds have their own channels, again spread out over a
> lot of spectrum and have duplicate systems in most cities. In fact the
> FBI and SS have systems that rival the locals but will not permit  
> local
> use of their channels even during a major emergency.
>
> 5) Command and control of a net is normally handled by the dispatch
> center-which coordinates traffic on the channels. Normally in a major
> event there is a command and control channel that permits the  
> bosses to
> communicate directly with the command center (dispatch center), and  
> then
> the orders are relayed on working channels including additional wide
> area and simplex channels as needed. Note--a dispatcher can "normally"
> handle about 60 individual units on a single channel, not more  
> which is
> why large cities have many channels and they are usually divided into
> sectors.
>
> 6) There are common fire and public safety channels in at least one  
> band
> (150 Mhz) which every unit is supposed to have in their radios (Fire
> White for example which is 154.280 MHz), and the police have Clemars
> also in the same band.
>
> 7) There is a move to update the public safety radios--one proposal is
> to use the 700 MHz band to supply radios to local, state, feds and  
> have
> these radios programmed over the air as people and equipment arrive  
> at a
> scene.
>
> 8) Data is done either using their own channels or on public networks
> there is no consistency here at the moment and the "new" Apco 25
> channels are so narrow that data services require a number of channels
> to be aggregated in order to provide even slow data speeds.
>
> 9) Secondary and admin communications is usually off-loaded to public
> networks such as Nextel's Direct Connect service but often times in a
> major event these channels--which have No priority are jammed.
>
> 10) Commercial wireless technology, in most cases, will NOT work for
> these agencies because they need one-to-many and dispatch  
> capabilities,
> they need wide-area systems so everyone can hear everyone else, and  
> they
> need incident simplex channels for local coordination.
>
> 11) Many dispatch systems are making use of IP routers to tie together
> two or more different PS channels during an event.  This occurs at the
> dispatch center BUT it means that a single conversation is taking up
> more than a single voice channel.
>
> 12) While public safety communications frequencies are coordinated by
> volunteers to minimize interference between departments and areas,  
> many
> departments are OUT of capacity and have been waiting for years for  
> one
> or two extra channels, while gobs of unlicensed spectrum has been  
> handed
> out for Wi-Fi and now WiMAX systems--ok, ok, mesh networks? Tell me  
> how
> to do that over all of these channels, tell me how to coordinate  
> all of
> this without any money to make it happen.
>
> 13) During major incidents the public networks are so jammed as to be
> useless, and John J. Citizen has as much priority to get a call  
> through
> as the fire chief in charge of an incident.
>
> 14) The ONLY way to fix all of this is with money and a vision, and  
> that
> vision will take YEARS to accomplish--by the way, there is a reason  
> that
> the CHP, for example, are still using 42 MHz (yes 42 MHz) for their
> systems, if they moved to 800 MHz they would need hundreds, yes  
> hundreds
> of new radio sites and still would not be able to provide radio  
> coverage
> in the mountains and rural areas--the higher you go in frequency the
> less range you can cover--
>
> Public Safety communications is the most miss-understood and  
> maligned of
> all of the radio services and it is because few understand the
> issues--in closing one more point--I guarantee that the public safety
> systems, when up and operating cover their areas better than ANY  
> public
> network--they have been designed to do that over the years--inside,
> outside, and everywhere, they HAVE to provide that level of coverage.
> They are all backed up with emergency power and batteries, redundant
> circuits and the best in tower locations. But it is a fact of life  
> that
> generators and batteries do not work very well under water.
>
> Many a police officer has been asked if they had to do without  
> their gun
> or their radio which they would pick and the answer is always, take my
> gun, leave me my radio!
>
> Just my three or four cents
>
> Andy
>
>
>
>
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