By Purvis
This Mid-Atlantic fire department is surrounded by one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States. Responsible for covering over 60 square miles, the department is tasked with protecting more than 600,000 residents and over 400,000 commuters and visitors each day.
The Challenge
This fire department, like with many others in the United States, had reached a point where its radio-based Fire Station Alerting System (FSAS) was nearing the end of its economic and practical life. The current system had been in operation for over 10 years and had become increasingly unreliable, requiring frequent repairs.
Further, because the current system relied on 800 MHz radio frequencies, communication quality was sporadic and prone to “atmospheric conditions”, channel interference, signal fading and intermodulation distortion.
For these reasons, the department determined its antiquated system should be replaced with a modern, standards-based FSAS and related technologies to facilitate the dispatch of fire and EMS first responders to a call for service and to meet the operational and interoperability requirements of the future.