If you ask sports fans, they will tell you that this February, Salt Lake City will host one of the largest and most impressive gatherings of athletes in history. But ask any of us who work in public safety, and we’ll tell you that Salt Lake City will be managing one of the greatest security challenges ever. For the sports fans, success will be measured in gold medals. For the public safety community, success will mean keeping thousands of people safe and happy under challenging conditions.

But like the athletes, Salt Lake City will be ready. To meet this challenge, city, county, state, and federal officials will have at their disposal a wide-ranging arsenal of new technologies and equipment to head off any threat to the peace of the games. Among their weapons: improved, interoperable communications for local, state, and federal public safety officials.

The problem

Years before Sept. 11, public safety officials, not just in Salt Lake City but nationwide, identified a critical radio communications problem, one that could severely cripple the response time of public safety personnel in an emergency. Put simply, public safety officials from neighboring jurisdictions often could not talk to each other over their radios. Nearly a third of public safety officials indicate that emergency calls have failed because of a lack of radio interoperability.

The challenge to improve interoperability is complex. Most of the country’s public safety radio systems are old, employing outdated technology. In addition, the United States is geographically diverse and population density varies. Consequently, officials across the country have adopted different technologies to accommodate their jurisdiction’s specific needs. Unintentionally, this practice has led to interoperability problems.

Closed-system architectures and proprietary technologies further compound the problem, which makes it difficult for neighboring areas to communicate when they have equipment from different vendors.
The challenges are not just technical. Radio frequency spectrum, which is crucial for interoperability, is in short supply. Public safety radio frequency spectrum allotments are currently located in small bands spread over the entire spectrum, and public safety agencies are forced to compete with powerful commercial interests for additional “air space.” In addition, public safety communications projects are often low funding priorities, although a national survey determined the Nation’s current public safety mobile radio equipment value at more than $18 billion.

The solution

To address this problem across the country and to field possible solutions, the federal government established the Public Safety Wireless Network (PSWN, or “piz-win”) Program.

The PSWN Program is jointly sponsored by the Department of the Treasury, and the Department of Justice (DOJ). With guidance from the Federal Law Enforcement Wireless Users Group and an executive committee composed of local, state, and federal public safety officials, the PSWN Program works with the public safety community at all levels of government. Its goal: to achieve seamless, coordinated and integrated public safety communications for the safe, effective, and efficient protection of life and property.

Long before the 2002 Winter Olympics came to Salt Lake City, the PSWN Program had identified the area as a location for piloting technical solutions to address interoperability problems in the region. The program conducted a case study to identify the right solution to make public safety communications equipment in the region “interoperable.”

The PSWN Program initially identified an optimal, long-term solution to achieve regional interoperability, a solution that would involve implementing new equipment and require extensive funding and cooperation among public safety agencies. When the Winter Olympics came into the picture, the PSWN Program looked for a more immediate, short-term solution to improve communications in the area by February 2002. The result, a console-to-console patching solution, allows current systems to inter-operate at a minimal cost.

The Salt Lake City PSWN Program

The PSWN Program designed the Salt Lake City effort as a pilot project to demonstrate a cost-effective solution that communities across the country could also implement. Specifically, its goals were to,

• achieve interagency communications among local, state, and federal public safety organizations
• reduce operational costs through efficient reuse of existing infrastructure and limited procurement of new equipment, and
• enhance functionality of current systems through comprehensive radio coverage and seamless interoperability with minimum dispatcher intervention.

Working with the Utah Communications Agency Network (UCAN), Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, and the DOJ, the PSWN Program led the interconnection of three major communications systems to provide connectivity between separate dispatch consoles. As a result, multiple agencies across the Salt Lake City Metropolitan Area can now intercommunicate using existing equipment throughout the area. This solution provides the radio infrastructure support for coordinated emergency response, special operations, and disaster preparedness.

Three years after the start of the effort, residents of and visitors to the Salt Lake City area are safer because the people who help them in an emergency can talk to each other when they need to. Down the road, the State of Utah will complete the long-term solution to further increase interoperability in the region. But for now, long after the Olympic Games are over and the tourists have left town, Salt Lake City will be left with a much improved public safety communications system that allows local, state, and federal public safety officials to talk to one another.

In mid-December 2001, the PSWN Program’s Salt Lake City console-to-console patching pilot was tested — successfully. Although Salt Lake still faces its most intense security challenge — protecting the Olympics — this effort to improve public safety communication has already provided important findings and solutions that can be used by other cities and counties around the country.

The interoperable communications systems that are up and running will be an important element in keeping Salt Lake City and its visitors safe during the Olympics— and long afterward. This experience prepares the PSWN Program to provide best practices and implementation guidelines to assist the public safety community in similar interoperability efforts.

For more information about how PSWN can help your county, visit the PSWN Program Web site at www.pswn.gov, or call (800) 565-PSWN (7796).

The PSWN Program and You County officials can be integral links in helping to achieve wireless interoperability for public safety agencies in their own jurisdictions and across the nation. The PSWN Program encourages you to: • attend and participate in a regional symposium to learn about best practices regarding interoperability • join a group focused on improving interoperability in your state (i.e., your state’s executive-level interoperability committee) • promote the critical need for wireless interoperability and about the specific need for adequate spectrum and funding resources, and • partner with neighboring public safety agencies to share and implement wireless interoperability solutions. The PSWN Program is committed to assisting localities with their plans to address and improve public safety communications. To find out more specifically about how to advance the efforts of wireless interoperability or attend a PSWN Program regional symposium, visit the PSWN Program Web site at www.pswn.gov or call (800) 565-PSWN (7796).

County Resources: The Public Safety Wireless Network (PSWN) Program No man, woman, or child should lose his or her life because public safety officials cannot talk to one another. Planning for and fostering interoperability among wireless communications networks is the primary mission of the Public Safety Wireless Network (PSWN) Program. Jointly sponsored by the Department of Justice and the Department of the Treasury, the PSWN Program helps facilitate collaboration at all levels of government (i.e., local, state, federal, and tribal), and among a variety of public safety disciplines and agencies (i.e., law enforcement, fire, and emergency medical services). The program strives to achieve the vision it shares with the public safety community—seamless, coordinated, and integrated public safety communications for the safe, effective, and efficient protection of life and property. Among the actions the program is taking in support of interoperability are: • initiating pilot projects to demonstrate technical interoperability solutions for wireless communications public safety challenges • hosting regional symposiums that bring together local, state, federal, and tribal public safety officials to identify the most prominent challenges limiting wireless interoperability, formulate solutions to address these challenges, and network with other public safety officials • providing input to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that highlights the need for adequate, appropriate public safety spectrum resources • establishing a national strategy — Public Safety WINS: Wireless Interoperability National Strategy — that provides proven, high-level implementation guidelines, best practices, and innovative technical and policy solutions to help the public safety community improve and implement interoperable communications networks, and • publishing and distributing informational guides and resources related to the five key policy issues to improve interoperability: coordination and partnerships, funding, spectrum, standards and technology, and security.

(Robert E. Lee, Jr. and Rick Murphy, PSWN program managers, co-chair the Federal Law Enforcement Wireless Users Group. Prior to joining the PSWN Program, Lee was an instructor at the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Va. and the International Law Enforcement Academy in Budapest, Hungary. After working at the Department of the Interior for 23 years, Murphy now works for the Department of the Treasury.)