Public officials continue to scramble for answers on why multi-million dollar digital trunked radio systems are perceived as failures. Today’s example is a new $37 million Motorola P25 system operated by the Metropolitan Emergency Communications Agency (MECA) in Marion County Indiana. Police officers and firefighters have raised potentially life-threatening safety concerns over the county’s digital radio system, and the MECA board of directors has called off two monthly meetings in a row. It appears that the MECA board has no satisfactory answers for the concerns raised.
You would think that the numerous examples of such failures throughout the country would lead reasonable and prudent decision makers to change direction. Digital trunked radio technology is clearly problematic in numerous ways, but Motorola and other vendors continue to aggressively sell the technology and unwitting government bureaucrats commit hundreds of millions of dollars to buy it. It will be interesting to see how Motorola, other system vendors and government agencies prevail when lawsuits stemming from lives that are lost because of radio communications problems become commonplace. The burden of settling the lawsuits may make the cost of the deficient equipment seem insignificant. Can Homeland Security grant money be used to pay judgments or settle lawsuits?
Links to additional information related to this article:
- MECA – Political donation amplifies police radio issues (08/01/08)
- Link to TV news video about FOP threatening to sue over digital radio issues (07/15/08)
- Indianapolis FOP threatens to sue over digital radio problems (07/15/08)
- Link to TV news video about more radio and telephone problems with the Indianapolis comm center and digital trunked radio system (07/09/2008)
- Link to IndyChannel-6 TV news story about MECA’s digital radio problems (06/20/2008)
- Link to TV news story with video about Indianapolis digital radio problems
- Link to IndyStar.com article with video and sample radio audio
- Metropolitan Emergency Communications Agency website
Links to published articles about MECA digital radio problems in PDF format:
- Indianapolis police worried about new radio system – July 9, 2008
- Emergency radio issues are still up in the air (July 2008)
- Indianapolis firefighters, police union decry move to new radio system (2008)
- MECA – Fire chiefs question new digital radio system (2008)
Links to more information about digital radio issues in general:
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