Agenda - 11-17-2011 - 1 - Attachment 1

Browse Search

Orange County Emergency Management, North Carolina Final VIPER Anal sis Re ort Au ust 20, 2004 9.0 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR JOINING VIPER VIPER offers Orange County a lower short and long term cost alternative to purchasing a new 800 MHz privately owned trunked radio system. Components of the VIPER network are already operational in and around Orange County. Orange County, by joining VIPER, will have met the requirement for having interoperability with VIPER by being part of the network. The cooperative approach of sharing facilities with North Carolina State Highway Patrol in adding coverage and capacity is a good alternative to building a totally separate radio system in the county. As of this report, CTA has not been able to obtain a copy of the VIPER agreement to review. We can only assume the terms of the agreement will be acceptable to Orange County when it is provided by NC- SHP. Direct interoperability with some of Orange County's neighboring counties already on VIPER will be supported by joining the network. CTA recommends that Orange County and UNC-Chapel Hill Department of Public Safety purchase replacement dispatch equipment and link into the VIPER network before any of Orange County's entities migrate from their legacy radio systems to VIPER. The telecommunicators at both PSAPs will then have the ability to support and dispatch users operating on their legacy systems before and as they migrate to VIPER. The telecommunicators will have the ability to dispatch users once they have fully migrated to VIPER. The telecommunicators will also be able to control conventional channels that remain operational after all of Orange County and its communities have migrated to VIPER. Telecommunicators will be able to establish a patch between conventional channels and talk groups on VIPER to provide interoperability with users on VHF or UHF. CTA recommends maintaining the conventional channels where paging is currently in operation and required in the future. If Orange County entities purchase VIPER compatible subscriber radios before the PSAPS are ready, we recommend they continue their primary operations on their legacy radio systems until the PSAPs are in a position to properly support them. Entities may use the VIPER subscriber radios as a backup and as a means to achieve direct interoperability with agencies outside of Orange County operating on VIPER. Entities migrating to VIPER with a large number of radios or limited ability to provide vehicles for installation in a short period of time may need to equip their vehicles with both legacy radios and VIPER subscriber units. After all of the entity's vehicles have VIPER installed the legacy radios may be removed if desired. Section 9 -Conclusions and Recommendations for Joining VIPER '~~"~ ®- Page 42 of 43 ....,