The State of Maine’s Department of Public Safety (DPS) provides police services, including building security, corrections, and emergency medical services. While the state’s Office of Information Technology is serving as the project office, the DPS is the principal user entity for a new, statewide, VHF digital conventional radio system to serve the voice and data communications needs across various state agencies. The objectives of this project were essentially as follows:

• Formulation of a cost-effective communications migration strategy based upon stringent system availability, survivability, and performance standards service a secure, reliable public safety mission, and,
  
  
• Development of a statewide voice/data communication system consolidation plan that promoted sharing of agency assets and resources, thereby substantially improving interagency communications and coordination opportunities and capabilities between DPS and Maine’s Transportation, Conservation, Inland Fisheries/Wildlife, and other Departments
  
  
• Recommend a frequency band taking into account the coordination issues with Canada and the potential use of 700 MHz in Maine for high-speed mobile data.

As is typical in many states today, Maine’s public safety state agencies were operating on different radio systems – in this case a variety of fragmented conventional VHF networks, with each offering marginally acceptable coverage in populated areas near Maine’s coastline but much poorer coverage inland characterized by austere, unpopulated public land and an international border that was difficult to patrol. These difficulties further complicated the ability to achieve needed radio interoperability economically.

The first phase of this project required Macro to fully inventory and characterize the type, condition, usage, and performance of all Maine’s various existing state radio systems and their supporting facilities. Then, based upon an in-depth series of focus group surveys with all user agencies, Macro was tasked to formulate a consolidated voice and data communication system needs assessment. Next, once Macro gained “buy-in” by each user agency, this needs assessment during the project’s formed the basis of the second phase of Macro’s engagement: a conceptual system design, engineering cost estimate, and user migration strategy, focused on the narrowbanding of the State’s VHF frequencies into an interoperable, modern statewide conventional digital voice and data network accessible to all levels of public safety culminating in what is now titled the Maine State Communications Network, or “MSCommNet”. Phase III of Macro’s engagement required Macro to prepare a request-for-proposal (RFP) package, complete with all special terms and conditions, price sheets, proposal format and evaluation process, etc. for the State to procure MSCommNet. The procurement requires a turnkey system integrator design and deploy the new VHF radio subsystem onto a new, high reliability, microwave datalink backhaul, as well as making all needed facility and site improvements (e.g. new towers, shelters, etc.) Macro led the technical and cost evaluation of proposals in response to the RFP, helped the state select a vendor, lead contract negotiations, and recommended a contract award. Phase IV involves Macro providing quality assurance, contract compliance, and technical oversight, during the design, installation, and test of MSCommNet.

First responder public safety agencies in the County of Hawai’i have unique challenges in communicating between county local government’s emergency services as well as with the multiple State agencies involved in public safety. Initiating a coordinated response across multi-jurisdictional boundaries in Hawai’i County is a monumental task for local providers with limited capabilities and without state-of-the-art technology. The County of Hawai’i recently engaged Macro to design a comprehensive, cost-effective upgrade for its legacy voice radio communications system with new mobile data capability.

Macro was selected to validate the vision for this system, identify specific problems that need to be addressed, and then to specify the system capabilities that will improve interoperability for the County’s first responders. Meeting the interoperability vision between emergency first responders of State and local agencies required Macro’s level of communication that can utilize resources in a coordinated and effective manner. Today, such technology is available to provide a comprehensive system that gives the ability to communicate quickly, clearly, and seamlessly. Macro performed a regulatory and technology assessment along with the development of alternative, conceptual RF designs in multiple frequency bands and based on alternative technologies suitable for use in Hawai’i County.

Over five years ago, the Illinois State Police (ISP) faced the reality that their radio communications lifeline had finally begun to fray. Replacing their current radio systems, however, would be no easy task. Such a radio replacement project would demand several hundred million dollars from limited state budget and take several years to complete. Even at the end of this project, how could the State be assured that the system will work? Second, although marching at different paces, will the new radio system be subject to the same phenomenon as the new personal computer you just bought: already technologically dated “out-of-the-box”? If this wasn’t enough, the State decided to up the ante. The project, called “STARCOM21”, must significantly increase the reach and reliability over the existing radio network, dramatically expand its functionality to become a truly multi-purpose for both public safety and other State agencies alike, and—because the current system was “fraying” faster than they’d hoped—complete the job in less than half the time. And, most importantly, do it for a tenth the cost.

With the State Police and Macro Corporation working together in a cohesive, complementary manner, the Macro team was able to turn the project into a “win-win” business case between the ISP, the State, and the selected radio system supplier. By building on both a proven client relationship and excellent engineering framework completed several years ago by members of our staff, Macro was able to review, evaluate, investigate, and benchmark two comprehensive technical and price proposals, formulate a successful negotiation strategy, and gain enthusiastic approval of vendor award from top Illinois government-officials—all in just three months.
Today, STARCOM21 is a digital-trunked, 700/800 MHz voice radio network not owned and operated by the State but the radio vendor themselves. The State purchased the necessary APCO Project 25 mobile and portable radio equipment while the selected vendor works to commission the new, statewide infrastructure. The State is now paying Motorola - functioning as the system’s “owner-operator”- a flat monthly access fee for the next seven years, with renewable option years to follow. The network permits the State Police and other State users to roam virtually anywhere in Illinois, and reach anyone else across the state, much like a regional cell-phone system today. Plus, the system will allow different state agencies and local public safety departments to finally intercommunicate on demand. Through the collaborative groundwork set down by ISP, Motorola, and Macro Corporation, the counties of St. Clair, McHenry, McLean and others around Illinois, have now migrated to…or today are planning to migrate to…the STARCOM21 network.

In 1999, the Metropolitan Council, a governmental body established by the State of Minnesota charged with coordinating transportation operations and capital projects in the nine counties comprising the Twin Cities-region of Minneapolis/St. Paul, retained Macro as prime consultant to lead the planning, design, and deployment support to Metro Transit for a new computer aided-dispatch/automatic vehicle location (CAD/AVL) system and Transit Control Center (TCC) facility. The dedicated wireless data communication Macro designed for the new CAD/AVL system and its 1,000 Metro Transit coaches is provided across four (4) 800 MHz wide-band conventional channels placed into the same topographic and geographic configuration as the region’s 800 MHz narrowband-digital trunked voice network. Service area-wide voice communication for Metro Transit, as well as several public works and public safety agencies in the region, was then provided by 800 MHz trunked voice system operated by the State’s Metropolitan Radio Board, or “MRB”, now subsumed . Ultimately, Macro selected and prescribed specifically for Metro Transit, a dedicated private wireless data carriage at that time because more spectrally efficient alternatives were either more costly to Metro Transit over the long run at that time (e.g. CDPD), were still under development or had limited deployment in that area (e.g., 1xRTT/1xEVO, GPRS, ASTRO IV&D), or yet unavailable (e.g. private network on aggregated 700 MHz). Moreover, technical requirements of to accommodate Metro Transit’s new CAD/AVL system also prohibited other agencies in the region from accessing these four transit data channels via third-party applications hosted on public safety-based MDCs.

Contemporaneously, mobile data terminals and computers are deployed throughout most public safety agencies protecting the Twin Cities region, all of which relied on low-speed private radio system technology or aging CDPD carriage for wireless data communication. (Commercial providers such as Verizon Wireless and AT&T/Cingular have since upgraded their respective carriage to “3G” digital high-speed wireless data services.) Thus, since these public safety agencies cannot operate on Metro Transit’s four 800 MHz data channels, public safety agencies in the Twin Cities area, operating on several dissimilar non-interoperable systems, CDPD service region chose to build a private, secure, IP-based shared data network “layer” leveraging the previous capital investments already made for their nine-county Motorola ASTRO P25 digital trunked voice network rather than migrate to the 3G service. Consequently, the MESB returned to Macro in 2004 as the prime engineering consultant to engineer and help acquire for the entire region, a high-speed wireless mobile data network. Macro is completed for the MESB a hybrid technology-solution for all public safety agencies under the MESB that aggregates the region’s 700 MHz wideband mobile data channels for dedicated, private, secure, regional-wide, IP-based, high-speed (~64 kbps) wireless data access and augmented by unlicensed or licensed (4.9 GHz) “Wi-Fi hotspots” for broadband (>T1 speeds) placed strategically in high-traffic, urbanized areas. The licensed 700 MHz data network-component relies on the same tower sites, equipment shelters, etc., and interconnect network as MRB’s 800 MHz voice system. Hennepin County, the chief sponsor member for this project, was the first agency migrated their 2,500 mobile data users onto what is configured today as multi-agency, multi-role, private, secure, IP-based, mobile data network delivering public safety-grade coverage, service level, availability, fault tolerance, throughput, and privacy/security.