New Police Radio System in New York State Draws Scrutiny

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New Police Radio System in New York State Draws Scrutiny

By JOHN SULLIVAN and AL BAKER

Published: December 18, 2007

A $2 billion emergency radio network intended to connect all emergency agencies and local police and fire departments in New York State has failed its first major test, prompting concerns from some state officials and causing the state’s second largest city, Buffalo, to opt out of the system.

The contract to build a network of wireless transmission towers that would allow tens of thousands of police officers, firefighters and other emergency personnel statewide to communicate was awarded in 2005 to M/A-Com, a division of Tyco International. The system was supposed to be in operation in Buffalo and surrounding Erie County and neighboring Chatauqua County by last June.

After the network’s rollout in Buffalo, however, the city’s top fire official said its problems were so severe that the radios did not work in roughly half the city.

“West of the center of the city we had zero reception,” Fire Commissioner Michael Lombardo said last week. In the areas that did receive transmissions, he said, “it sounded like a guy was talking in a tin can.”

He says Buffalo now intends to upgrade its own radio system, which will then be able to connect with the statewide system.

Under the current state emergency radio system, large areas of the state are unreachable, and many police and fire departments cannot talk to each other. After receiving complaints from federal and state lawmakers, the State Office of Homeland Security is considering hiring an independent company to conduct its own tests on the M/A-Com network.

“We are strongly considering the advantages to hiring an outside company with technical expertise,” said Michael A. L. Balboni, the deputy secretary for public safety, who is Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s top homeland security aide. “If those glitches are still present when the system is presented to the state for acceptance and then payment, that will be a very large concern.”

He added that if the problems persisted, they could derail the project.

Officials from M/A-Com expressed confidence the issues could be addressed, and said problems in Buffalo had been caused by interference from other radio transmissions. The system has been tested in neighboring Chatauqua County, which is mainly rural, and officials there had no complaints, said Victoria Dillon, an M/A-Com spokeswoman.

The gaps were “localized in a few sites, like cell carriers, a TV station in Canada,” Ms. Dillon said.

Michael R. Mittleman, the state official overseeing the project for the Office of Technology, agreed.

“We believe that when we get back to the testing out there in February that the problem will be resolved,” he said.

Mr. Mittleman said that he hoped the system would be operating in the two counties by April, and that the state would decide at that point whether to accept the network. That makes the tests in Erie and Chatauqua counties especially critical.

An upgrade for the state’s antiquated emergency radio network had been in the planning stage since the 1990s, but the project took on new urgency after the Sept. 11 attacks. The project, known as the Statewide Wireless Network, will be designed so that even cities that do not directly participate in the project, like New York City, will be able to connect with the system.

The contract drew criticism when it was awarded by the Pataki administration, with some lawmakers questioning whether M/A-Com had the track record to handle the job.

The company hired former Senator Alfonse D’Amato, a close ally of former Gov. George E. Pataki, as its lobbyist, and telecommunications companies lobbied aggressively for the contract.

The project has encountered challenges. Recently, the senior state police official assigned to oversee the construction of the network said in an e-mail message obtained by The New York Times that the state’s Office of Technology had not been demanding enough of M/A-Com, and called the Erie County effort a “debacle.”

The official, Thomas J. Cowpers, a staff inspector, left the project after friction with M/A-Com and the Office for Technology officials.

Mr. Cowpers wrote in the e-mail message that his role had been curtailed “due to my incessant criticism of M/A-Com management and my constant frustration with O.F.T.’s unwillingness to hold them accountable. ‘’

Mr. Cowpers declined to comment, and Lt. Glenn Miner, a state police spokesman, said the state police would not comment on the e-mail message. “From everything I am told, we remain very positive about it,” Lieutenant Miner said.

Officials in Erie County, however, said the problems were serious.

Michael R. Summers, president of the union representing sheriff’s deputies in Erie County, said he thought the system might have been pushed into service too soon. He said the radios worked in some areas but received no reception in others.

“There were spots where we could not communicate with each other,” he said. “We would move 10 feet up the road, and it would work.”

According to a report from the state comptroller’s office last December, the state was scheduled to have the new radio system running in Erie and Chautauqua counties by last June.

Ms. Dillon said the company now expected the system to be operating in the two counties by the end of the first quarter of 2008. After that, the state will have 45 days to accept or reject M/A-Com’s work. If the state rejects the system, Ms. Dillon said, it will not have to pay anything.

The entire network is scheduled to be finished in 2010.

When M/A-Com won the contract, critics raised questions about the company’s handling of a wireless contract for Pennsylvania. That system, expected to be finished in 2001, was more than three years late and cost more than double the original projection. But in a statement last week, New York officials said the delays in the Pennsylvania contract were caused by problems unrelated to M/A-Com.

The total cost of New York’s system were slow to emerge. When it was first proposed, state lawmakers were told it would cost more than $1 billion, but far lower than the $3 billion bid by M/A-Com’s competitor, Motorola. By the time the contract was signed in 2005, the final cost was $2.1 billion.

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If the State had rejected the lowest bidder, which they are allowed to do and went with the $3 Billion Motorola System, they would have had most of the system already built out and they would be wasting all this money on testing a system that is going to fail anyway. If M/ACOM systems are so great, then why is the Federal Govts nationwide radio system on a Motorola system? The State should look to the Feds and see how their system works and then dump the current project. STOP WASTING TAXPAYERS MONEY ON A SYSTEM THAT IS GOING TO FAIL!!!!!