HSTX awarded $9.1 million contract with city of San Jose CA.
Harris Stratex Networks Awarded Emergency Communications Network Wireless Transmission Contract by the City of San Jose, California
Wednesday April 2, 9:00 am ET
New microwave radio network to be installed, integrated and maintained for 31 agencies throughout Santa Clara County
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., April 2, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Harris Stratex Networks, Inc. (Nasdaq: HSTX), the leading independent supplier of turnkey wireless transmission solutions, today announced a new $9.1 million contract with the City of San Jose, California to engineer, install, integrate and provision the Emergency Communications (ECOMM) private microwave radio network. Under the terms of the agreement, Harris Stratex Networks also will supply full maintenance support and services for the ECOMM network during its first year of operation.
ECOMM is designed to support interoperable communications between law enforcement, fire protection and emergency medical services for 31 different agencies in 18 jurisdictions throughout Santa Clara County, California, including the City of San Jose. The ECOMM digital backbone will link a total of 14 different 9-1-1 call centers in the county, providing high-speed sharing of dispatch services, records databases and voice traffic, enabling first responders to improve local incident response times and better manage regional incidents. The project is funded by grants from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security. The Santa Clara contract represents the fourth multi-million dollar project involving Homeland Security funding won by Harris Stratex in the past 18 months in California's Bay Area.
"One of the major issues facing the emergency services sector is the inability of emergency service workers, including traditional first responders, to communicate with one another as efficiently as possible when they need to do so," said Jayne Leighton, vice president, North American Sales and Services, Harris Stratex Networks. "The ECOMM Network addresses those challenges. We are working closely with City of San Jose and Silicon Valley Regional Interoperability Project (SVRIP) officials to provide the engineering, design, hardware, training, installation and integration services for this critical communications network."
"This innovative program developed by the SVRIP links agencies and entities throughout Santa Clara County with a high speed interoperability network that will improve communications, dispatch and response to all regional incidents, enhance information sharing and allow for many other important partners to add their systems at a future date," said Scott Seaman, Chief of Police of Los Gatos, California and Chairman of the SVRIP.
"Interoperability means strengthening interagency coordination and enabling the region's first responders to exchange critical information and resources. We are pleased to have the support of the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security in this effort, and to be working with Harris Stratex Networks on provisioning, deployment and maintenance."
ECOMM to Support Interoperability across 18 Jurisdictions in Santa Clara County
ECOMM will support advanced interoperability applications deployed by the SVRIP, comprising 18 jurisdictions throughout Santa Clara County. It will interconnect Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) systems between jurisdictions, and facilitate the sharing of law enforcement records management information, along with the deployment of new interoperable hybrid 700/150 MHz mobile radio systems. As a result, previously isolated jurisdictions and stove-piped systems will more effectively communicate and share resources across boundaries during multi-agency and multi-jurisdiction emergencies.
ECOMM will use a variety of industry-leading products and systems developed by Harris Stratex Networks, including the company's TRuepoint® 6400 and 5000 radios. Harris Stratex has completed an engineering study, along with a final system design for the project. All CEQA and NEPA environmental approvals and all conditional use permits from each local agency have been obtained. ECOMM site construction will begin in spring 2008, with final commissioning in fall 2008. The 18 jurisdictions involved in the program are now developing a cost formula for system maintenance, which will be apportioned across each city and town in the county based on population served by ECOMM.
TRuepoint Provides Flexible, Versatile Digital Platform
The TRuepoint product family, including the 6400 and 5000 radios, provides the City of San Jose and the other cities and towns in the SVRIP with a flexible, versatile digital communications platform designed specifically to conserve space and support a wide range of interfaces include TDM, Ethernet and SONET. The newly introduced TRuepoint 6400 offers standard and high-power transmitter options that enable administrators to plan flexibly while reducing transmission costs; interfaces, capacity and protection switching can be added easily and without interruption to operations.
A typical application which would be carried on the ECOMM network will be a unique CAD to CAD system. Using this system, a fire dispatcher can immediately identify available resources from adjacent jurisdictions or from previously established manually managed resource sharing protocols that could be dispatched in a critical emergency. This kind of rapid response will save valuable time compared with the current practices, which requires a series of telephone calls and conversations to identify, request and confirm dispatch of resources. The robust capacity of the ECOMM network will enable public safety officials to quickly share increasingly data heavy information such as video which is often distributed manually to law enforcement personnel.
Also, ECOMM will be independent of commercial wireless and telephone networks, which often overload and fail during major regional incidents. Independent operation eliminates the potential for delayed or uncoordinated responses. The network will eventually link to other interoperable public safety microwave systems being built in the greater San Francisco Bay region, extending from Monterey to Sacramento. |
