Agenda - 06-05-2001-9d - Laserfiche WebLink

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~. ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT Meeting Date: June 5, 2001 Action Age a Item No. ~ a SUBJECT:: RFP Award -Needs Assessment for Consolidated Communications System and Network Design Services DEPARTMENT: Purchasing and Central Services, Emergency Management PUBLIC HEARING: (Y/N) No ATTACHMENT(S): INFORMATION CONTACT: Pam Jones (919) 245-2652 Nick Waters (919) 968-2050 TELEPHONE NUMBERS: Hillsborough 732-8181 Chapel Hill 9fi8-4501 Durham 688-7331 Mebane 336-227-2031 PURPOSE: To consider awarding a Request for Proposal for Needs Assessment for a Consolidated Communications System and Networks Design Services to CTA of Lynchburg, Virginia. BACKGROUND: The Public Safety Communications system is quickly becoming inadequate to handle the growing demands of the user agencies. A number of issues must be addressed in order to have a coordinated functional system that will best serve Orange County citizens. Among them are: • Replacement of consoles ' Consoles in the communication center are nearly 10-years old and utilize a technology that went our of production over five years ago. Because parts are no longer made for the consoles, maintenance is becoming increasingly more difficult. Replacement of these consoles within a relatively short time period is inevitable. Since consoles must be compatible with radio systems used in the county, decisions to upgrade the communications capabilities in the future is a critical component to determining the type of consoles needed. • Additional demands of agencies The Emergency Service and Law Enforcement Agencies need more and more radio time to carry out the service demands of the departments. This increase in frequencies leads to a bottleneck in the communications center with more units calling on different channels at the same time. Further complicating the issue is the non-existence of a common radio channel among all user agencies. _ _ • Compatibility The needs assessment will lead to standards that ensure compatibility of components among all agencies. The need for compatibility goes beyond equipment. For example;, compatibility of record management software used by agencies has been problematic. The software was not compatible with the communications system making data transfer inefFcient and very labor intensive.