Published 11th April 2018, 11:26am
As part of the next step to provide the Cayman Islands with a
mission-critical communication system, government leaders have tested
the cutting-edge equipment provided by Motorola Solutions.
The new equipment is due to arrive on island within the week.
Ministry of Home Affairs Deputy Chief Officer, Kathryn Dinspel-Powell;
Acting Director for Hazard Management Cayman Islands (HMCI), Lee Madison
and Director for the Department of Public Safety Communications (DPSC),
Julian Lewis recently travelled to the Motorola facility in Elgin,
Illinois to participate in the testing of the new P25 system. This
requirement was built into the RFP process as well as the contract with
Motorola.
Since signing an agreement with Motorola Solutions on 14 December 2017,
Ministry leaders continue to work to provide the Cayman Islands with the
most modern national public safety radio system in the Caribbean.
Government remains committed to delivering the highest standard of
public safety to the people of the Cayman Islands as evidenced in our
investment in this state of the art technology, Minister for the
Ministry of Home Affairs, Hon. Tara Rivers, said. The system upgrade
will integrate all public safety radio users on a common platform to
enable greater interoperability and inter-agency collaboration. It will
also maximise mobile radio coverage throughout the islands to provide a
baseline means of communications for all first responders.
In preparation for the installation phase of the project, a team of
Motorola Solutions Systems Engineers recently visited the Cayman Islands
to inspect all the existing and new radio sites for the system.
The three new sites, West Bay, Frank Sound and Cayman Brac West, were
all inspected for clear microwave paths, tower conditions, grounding,
equipment location and backup power. Existing sites at Gun Bay,
Northward, Radio Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, were also
inspected to make sure they were suitable for the new equipment.
The Department of Public Safety Communications (DPSC) was also
inspected for networking and space availability for the new radio
consoles, as well as 911 and radio logging equipment, Mr. Madison said.
A visit to the Government Administration Buildings data centre,
Hazard Management Cayman Islands office and command centre was also
conducted to check resources for the new systems core.
The new communications system will have several near-term operational
enhancements, which will immediately improve DPSCs service delivery,
explained the Departments Director Julian Lewis. It will also improve
portable radio coverage inside buildings, on roadways and in
high-incident areas. In addition, it will enhance network capacity to
support private group communications paths for different public safety
partners and functions, automate various network functions to simplify
dispatcher and field user operations and support enhanced features such
as end-to-end encryption and GPS location services all of which will
result in safer communities.
Once the new system is online, various training exercises will be
conducted to ensure effective use of the system by all agencies, Ms.
Dinspel-Powell said. The new technology will pave the way for future
means of providing other data and information technology services that
are becoming increasingly invaluable tools in the field of public
safety.
Final testing will be conducted on the new system in October of this year.