Take the Next Step: Moving from EDACS to P25 in Polk County

As the multi-year project to upgrade Polk County, Iowa’s radio network to a P25 system comes to a close, Project Manager Steve Holmes says the journey hasn’t been without its challenges. Significant budget constraints hampered progress, but by phasing the project, RACOM was able to work around funding issues. Polk County will soon have all of its agencies on a common network upgraded to meet all its needs.

“This was our first P25 migration site,” says Holmes. “We started in November 2011 and along the way we’ve had to be creative. Funding constraints meant that we had to prioritize, but with a good partner and a solid plan, we were able to keep things moving.”

Stepping toward a full upgrade

Like many municipalities, Polk County faced mandates to upgrade to a system that’s both interoperable and encrypted for security. RACOM helped the county move to an interoperable EDACS system a few years ago, and following an RFP process, the county selected RACOM for the P25 upgrade.

Major Brent Long, Communications Director for the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, notes how important it was for the county to have a partner that could handle the scope of the project. “Our PSAP currently dispatches for 15 different fire and 15 different law enforcement agencies, and our continued relationship with RACOM has proven to be an asset for all agencies involved,” says Long.

In order to keep the project affordable, RACOM developed a leased-radio program using the company’s EDACS network. During the first phase they provided about 550 radios for the Ankeny Police Department and fourteen fire departments.

“Some of these departments were already on the 800 MHz EDACS, but Ankeny police were on UHF and the fire departments were on VHF,” says Holmes. “Instead of narrowbanding their old conventional radios, we brought them over to an EDACS trunked network, so you had the sheriff’s department, public works, police, and fire all sharing a common radio system.”

Expanding coverage throughout the county

Meanwhile, says Holmes, RACOM was busy adding four brand new sites for a total of seven — vastly increasing coverage throughout the county. “These sites are also connected by a new licensed MPLS microwave ring,” says Holmes. “By beefing up the network, we improved the reliability and redundancy of a system that before had provided primarily mobile coverage, but now meets the needs of law enforcement and fire personnel, who increasingly rely on their portables for communication.”

Long confirms the importance of the expanded infrastructure, saying, “As Polk County has begun the process of upgrading our radio system to P25, we have seen vast improvements in coverage and interoperability.”

Phase two of the project was equally ambitious. RACOM will install a new P25 network at our existing EDACS sites and provide multiple agencies already on EDACS that weren’t P25 compatible with new equipment: 330 portable radios and 190 mobile units for police and fire; 240 mobiles and portables for the jail and public works. “What we’ll be doing over the next several months — getting those radios installed and preparing to migrate all users from EDACS to P25,” says Holmes.

This phase also includes an upgrade to the communications center, including 11 new dispatch consoles, new furniture, a new logging recorder, and an interoperability gateway between the legacy system and P25.

Seamless communications on a common network

It’s an enormous undertaking, but one of the most significant gains for Polk County law enforcement agencies and the fire departments will be the ability to communicate on a common network, says Holmes.

“It hasn’t been uncommon for two people to be standing next to each other each on different radios talking to their people and then talking to each other,” he says. “That will be a thing of the past.”

In addition to proposing a project plan that would work with the county’s funding requirements, RACOM provided full design and implementation of the project. Holmes says it required the ability to coordinate work with technicians and engineers, get buy-in from stakeholders, and work well with the project team on the customer side as well as their end users.

“It makes the difference between failure and success,” he says.

Now, with the system set to be in use by the end of summer and the project to be complete by the end of 2015, Holmes sees the light at the end of the tunnel. “It’s been a long time coming,” he says. “But when you finally get everything where you want it to be and the customer’s happy, that’s a great feeling.”

Long, too, is pleased with the outcome for the county – and especially for its citizens, he says. “The network, infrastructure, and support that RACOM provides is a key element in providing a quality service to all citizens within Polk County. We are very pleased with our years of service we have had with RACOM and look forward to the years to come.”

[cta]Are you looking for a cost-effective plan for your next communication system upgrade? Call RACOM at 800-722-6643 or email us at info@racom.net.[/cta]