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The Cayman Islands will soon be home to the most modern radio system
for public safety and emergency communication in the Caribbean.
The brand new mission-critical radio system, its infrastructure and
accompanying accessories arrived on island and will be deployed and
installed over the next several months.
To facilitate implementation, the Department of Public Safety
Communications (DPSC) recently met with a group of representatives from
uniformed services agencies and first responders to provide a progress
update on project milestones including the deployment of equipment and
training as well as features of the new system.
Director DPSC Julian Lewis noted that his department was recently
assigned responsibility for Governments national public safety radio
system.
Going forward this will help the Government to make the most of shared
information technology platforms and ensure that our public safety
communications systems across the board are ready for whatever
challenges may arise in the future, Mr. Lewis remarked.
In addition to public safety a number of channels will be used for
national emergency operations in the event of a hurricane or other
disaster. The new radios also have several enhanced and customisable
features including GPS tracking, the ability to send SMS messages to
radios, as well as the capacity to synch with Bluetooth devices,
body-cams, etc.
Addressing the attendees Home Affairs Minister Hon. Tara Rivers
underscored Governments commitment through the investment in the new
system as an important means to boost the effectiveness of first
responders.
The Minister also observed that the old system had reached the end of
its natural life cycle while still expected to cope with a considerable
amount of radio traffic. In 2017 this included nearly a million radio
calls, which totaled just under 2.5 million minutes or some 40,000
hours.
The next step in the implementation process is the installation of new
equipment in the Government Administration Building, DPSC and the other
eight sites in Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman. These works
are expected to commence within the coming weeks and will take
approximately six months to complete.
During this time the DPSC will be holding meetings with individual
departments to customise the functionality of their radios in advance of
their deployment.
The old system will remain functional during the transition to the new
system ensuring redundancy in the event of a disaster. All radios are
expected to be on Island and fully rolled out by November.
Agencies that attended the presentation included: Customs, Immigration,
the Police Service, the Prison Service, and the Health Services
Authoritys Emergency Services Team.
At the end of last year Government and Motorola Solutions signed a
contract to modernise Governments current radio system, purchased in
2003, with the next-generation P25 system designed by Motorola
specifically for public sector agencies.