Emergency communicationMaryland rolls out public safety interoperable communication system

To be better prepared for man-made or natural disasters, Maryland leaders have decided to develop Twelve Core Capacities for Homeland Security, picking the deployment of an interoperable communications system as the highest priority.

Maryland governor Martin O’Malley believes that lives were needlessly placed in jeopardy and lost on 9/11 because of the lack of interoperable communication. This recognition prompted Maryland to make an interoperable communications system the most important element in its new homeland security plans.

On 5 June 2012 O’Malley inaugurated the state’s new network, known as the Maryland First Responders Interoperable Radio System Team (Maryland FiRST). It was designed and installed at the Maryland Department of Information Technology.

Urgent Communication reports that the new network is a fully digital, secure trunked radio system which lets emergency responders transmit and receive voice communications and data throughout the state.

Maryland FiRST will have 165 tower sites across the state providing 95 percent in-building portable coverage statewide. The system will not be completed until 2016.

As county and local agencies join Maryland FiRST, they can use the system’s extra capacity for their own operations and for communicating with departments outside their borders. In the event a disaster, any center on the system can dispatch first responders anywhere in Maryland.

Maryland FiRST is being built in five phases. The first will provide coverage along I-95, where it goes through Maryland. One-third of the state’s population and two-thirds of its critical infrastructure lie in this corridor. This section includes Baltimore-Washington International Airport, Thurgood Marshall Airport, the Port of Baltimore, the Chesapeake Bay and Key Bridges, and both tunnels under Baltimore Harbor. Phase one will have twenty-three tower sites, all of which will be fully operational by the end of this year.

The second phase, covering Maryland’s Eastern Shore, will begin next year. Phases three and four will fill out the system in the central and southern areas of the state including the National Capital Region and the Washington suburbs. The last phase will take place in the western part of the state.

Urgent Communication notes that in order to avoid narrowbanding, Maryland FiRST is using one of the nation’s first Project 25 Phase 2 Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) trunking systems, with Dynamic Dual Mode. This system enables users to maximize current frequency allocations with a standards-based solution while maintaining interoperability with other P25 systems.

The Maryland Transportation Authority and Kent County will be the first agencies to join Maryland FiRST. For Kent County, the move will save $5 million: by signing on to the program, the county will not have to reconfigure its existing system.

According to Ray Lehr, director of Maryland’s Statewide Interoperability Executive Committee, Maryland FiRST will be an innovative system which will change the way Maryland handles emergencies.

“This system is going to be a game-changer for the first-responders community throughout the state of Maryland,” Lehr told Urgent Communications. Lehr also added that the new interoperable system will make end-users’ jobs easier and, “most importantly, it’s going to make the folks on the street a whole lot safer.”