Many moving parts

Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Rick Burke & Jim Dombrouski

“The reality is that the rebanding program has had — and will continue to have — a significant burden on public safety in terms of diverted resources and operational risk,” he said. “Given the cumbersome negotiation process and unrealistic timeline, there's no question the program will take longer than the FCC anticipated.”

Indeed, Milwaukee County, MCTS and Televate, the county's engineering consulting firm, have worked diligently on rebanding, completing their respective planning tasks in accordance with the Transition Administrator (TA) guidelines. However, an evaluation process determined that the Motorola Spectra radio used in the ITS/CAD/AVL system could not be rebanded and had to be replaced. Complicating matters, Motorola and other radio vendors currently do not manufacture a direct replacement for this unit. As a result, the county and MCTS, with approval from Sprint Nextel, determined that a formal request for proposal (RFP) was essential, in compliance with county procurement requirements, to determine the optimal solution and vendor to reband the intricate voice/data radio requirements of the MCTS system.

The county, MCTS and Televate spent six months identifying and prequalifying ITS/CAD/AVL vendors that could provide a solution for the MCTS system prior to receiving a rebanding planning funding agreement (PFA). The county, MCTS and Televate also continued their planning efforts within the TA's mandated guidelines. The functional specifications and the RFP were developed during the originally allocated 180 days for the PFA and completed on April 30.

According to new guidelines contained in an FCC order issued in September, once the PFA was executed the remaining planning activities were to be completed by Oct. 15. (See MRT, October 2007, page 6.) Then the ITS/CAD/AVL systems must be customized to MCTS operational requirements and formally procured, a process that typically takes three to six months to complete. Finally, the selected equipment vendor will require an additional 18 to 24 months to manufacture and implement the final system.

However, this realistic schedule does not at all fit the FCC's desired planning and reconfiguration schedule.

“We are concerned that the aggressive rebanding timetable cannot be realistically applied to Milwaukee County and various other rebanding [efforts] we are supporting,” said Solomon Tadesse, Televate senior partner and head of the company's rebanding division. “Most of our clients have complex radio systems that are integrated with their neighboring jurisdictions for interoperability. Our fundamental requirement is to ensure uninterrupted operations during all phases of the rebanding program.

“We are respectful of the FCC's desired program completion timetable, but we must balance the time to plan and reconfigure against the basic realities of the program management.”

The complexities of the Milwaukee County network clearly illustrate that there are no “standardized” rebanding scenarios. The county, MTSC and Televate continue to work diligently to formally identify and procure a vendor for the ITS/CAD/AVL systems, as well as to evaluate and implement the various components of the county's overall rebanding program. Six months were spent negotiating with Sprint Nextel just to finalize the PFA, and nearly as much time has been allocated so far to develop the reconfiguration plans. The county's efforts to complete the work already were challenging within the framework of the original TA timeline. Rebanding the MCTS system certainly cannot be completed within the FCC's new timeline.

The Milwaukee County radio network's complexities may sound very familiar to other radio system operators faced with similar challenges, and the new time constraints ordered by the FCC will be equally unrealistic for such entities. These dates also place a considerable burden on vendors to manufacture and deliver equipment, as well as on the army of technicians that is required to reprogram and/or install rebanded radios. Finally, standard government procurement requirements and timelines have a life cycle of their own and, even with the best intentions of the FCC to hasten the completion of the rebanding program, procurement officials cannot bend their unique regulations to comply with the revised timeline. Consequently, the rebanding community might wish to reassess the status of their respective programs and advise the FCC of more realistic completion timelines.

Rick Burke is managing partner for Televate LLC, which provides radio frequency and IT engineering services for the public-safety and homeland security sectors. Jim Dombrouski is rebanding program manager for Milwaukee County and a senior consultant for Televate.