Paul Kindell Director, Warren County Telecommunications Chairman, SOSINK Interoperability Subcommittee Chairman, Homeland Security Region 6 Interoperability Subcommittee August 2012 presentation in anticipation of Warren County’s Digital MARCS IP Radio System

History 1989 Warren County Commissioners purchased original analog trunked system. Goal - make Sheriff’s Office, Police, Fire interoperable in Warren County. 39 MHz - law 45 MHz - southern fire 150 MHz - northern fire Warren County achieved countywide interoperability when all law agencies could talk to all fire agencies. 1990

WC Leadership benefits Public Safety Warren County Commissioners have always provided free mobile and handheld radios to public safety Established the Telecommunications department which offers many benefits to county agencies One service to build and maintain the radio system One team to program and repair radios Control over the types of radios added to the system Bulk batteries at lower cost passes savings on to users Fix minor problems in-house, avoiding vendor’s high, flat rate repair costs Because we maintain spare equipment, we can quickly get fire apparatus / police vehicles back into service with loaner radios while the primary radio is out for repair.

Progress Number of users that could talk at one time was limited. We rarely allowed outside agencies on the system to protect our user’s ability to talk. More capacity = more sharing with West Chester Twp in Butler County then Montgomery County. Early/Mid 90’s Late 90’s/Early 00’s Realized we were hurting ourselves by not sharing. The people asking to share our system were those coming to help us put out fires, rescue people, and provide emergency medical care. Let’s share with everyone!

Progress 2006 Telecom pre-planned for the eventual switch to digital, saving $15M on our new system. Grants to upgrade radios from analog to digital Grants to purchase new digital radios (Overall Nextel deal replaced non-digital radios $9M in savings) Prepped tower sites ($4-6M savings) Without the above foresight, we would have requested a $25Million radio system from the County Commissioners, potentially making a new system financially impossible. Extended system access to Hamilton, Clermont, and Butler County. Today we don’t exclude any reasonable request for access. Mid 2000’s

Progress 2012 Original radio system is 23 years old and needs replaced. We are ready to take the next step and interoperate statewide. Just as it made sense years ago to open up the system to our neighbors, it makes even more sense now to partner with the state.

Interoperability Today Clumsy at best Each radio must have neighboring counties’ systems programmed into it Hours of programming by Telecom Channel navigation while driving 26 zones of 16 channels each = 416 channels Radio navigation is the last thing Telecom wants a firefighter or cop to think about

Benefits from Partnering with MARCS Fewer zones if more neighboring counties partner with MARCS Rare opportunity for Warren County to get more for less More capabilities More interoperability Less complexity for our users Lower cost Partnering with MARCS will delete the need for a Master Computer to control the system and literally plug us into MARCS. Saves $1,000,000 initially Saves $200,000 per year in maintenance costs

MARCS Towers in Warren County Benefits for Warren Co.  2 MARCS towers fills in our coverage gaps  County users will be able to roam anywhere in Warren County using all 9 towers seamlessly. Benefits for MARCS  State users will be able to roam anywhere in Warren County using all 9 towers seamlessly (from previous 2)  State will not have to maintain communications infrastructure in Warren County, saving money. When State built original MARCS system, they hoped we could share our towers but our tower locations were wrong. Consequently, MARCS built two towers to cover their primary service areas. Now that we are partnering, those towers will be incorporated into the Warren County system.

The Reality is  Upcoming challenges  Give & take from Warren County and State  Greatness is never easy  Partnership between MARCS and Warren County  Good for Warren County?  Good for the State?  Good for Public Safety?  Great for the Tax Payers?

Thank you – I’ll take questions at the end along with the other speakers