PSEC Is Live! By Dan Nila

The successful completion of the Public Safety Enterprise Communications or PSEC project has been a cooperative effort between Riverside County Sheriff, Riverside County Fire, Riverside County Economic Development Agency (EDA), the County Executive Office, with Riverside County Information Technology (RCIT), leading the project. Motorola, Inc. was contracted to provide the equipment and to integrate the system. The PSEC Steering Committee includes representation from each of the county departments involved in the project. The Steering Committee met monthly to review project activities, provide direction, and authorize expenditures; it will continue to meet until the project has achieved the final sign-off. On January 30, 2007 (M.O. 3.42b), the Board of Supervisors approved the agreement with Motorola Inc. in the amount of $104,438,000 and established the project start date as March 7, 2007. In the time since the Motorola contract approval, the vendor and PSEC Project Team have faced numerous unexpected challenges. Foremost have been the difficulties encountered when negotiating with government entities to either lease or purchase essential sites to place new radio towers. The project continued to make progress while working through identified risks:

• Acquiring commercial power from SCE and the smaller power providers within the county,
• Environmental compliance such as nesting bird surveys,
• Multiple Species Habitat Conservation requirements,
• Paleontology and archeological assessments;
• Tribal consultations,
• The National Environmental Policy Act.

The greatest challenge we faced was working through site acquisition requirements of the Federal Agencies. In March of 2009 the Board of Supervisors approved the first contract amendment accepting the Detail Design Analysis. The Detail Design Analysis identified areas in the proposed design where changes were required to meet the operational specifications of the County.

On February 15, 2011, the Board of Supervisors approved the Frequency Reconfiguration Agreement (FRA) between the County, Sprint Nextel, and the Federal Communications Commission – Transition Administrator. The project team continued to make considerable progress despite the challenges. By April of 2011 (35) thirty-five of (68) sixty-eight sites were energized making the new radios functional and available for testing. By June of 2011 the microwave link between Alessandro and Blythe were operational, and by June 2013 all (68) sixty-eight sites were operational. The final coverage design provided by Motorola during the detail design phase exceeded the County’s mobile (in car) coverage objectives, however it did not meet the County’s requirements for portable (on hip) radio coverage. To enhance the portable radio coverage, Motorola and the PSEC Project Teams reconvened and developed the “Enhanced Coverage” phase. This phase consisted of acquiring an additional nine sites, and expected completion of twelve months.

The PSEC Executive Steering Committee requested a mid-course schedule adjustment to the project plan to extend the original project schedule of October 2010 by an additional 12 months to October 2011. However the nine additional sites are located in areas with rocky and uneven terrain which require diesel generators for prime power and twenty-four months to complete.

Also during this multi-year project, the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) mandated Rebanding of 800 MHz frequencies due to interference from commercial cellular transmitter sites – specifically Sprint Nextel. Rebanding is the process of realigning the 800MHz frequency band. The reallocating of the frequencies mandates a physical change to all subscriber units and hilltop radio equipment. The FCC then further discovered a shortage of 800 MHz spectrum and strongly encouraged PSEC to be reengineered and redesigned using the newly allocated 700 MHz frequency band, which included spectrum reserved for public safety. The system redesign to the 700MHz frequency band required an additional nine month effort by Motorola. The project completion date was extended to October 2012.

Beginning in 2012 the project team focused on the milestones required to complete the project. The change to 700MHz required the antennas on twenty-eight sites to be replaced. Radio equipment at the sites was also modified. The work effort further extended the completion date to December 2012.

Functional testing of the radio system started in April of 2012 and the functionality of the radios and dispatch equipment was completed by June. Coverage Acceptance Testing (CATP) started in August 2012 and was completed by October 2012. The team was confident in the geographic and in-building coverage so the team began planning for implementation in December 2012. In mid-December the Motorola Field Services released a “stop ship” on the APX radios recommended the radios not be used by Public Safety until the problem with the radios was resolved. During March of 2013, Motorola confirmed the corrective action for the radio issues was to upgrade to version 7.13 of the system. The original version deployed was 7.09. A plan was developed to apply the updated version to both system and site hardware, in addition to software. The version upgrade required the PSEC Project team to redo a portion of the CATP over a 90 day period. At the conclusion of the second CATP in November 2013 the Sheriff staff identified several new radio issues. Radio feedback and performance in windy conditions were significant problems. Motorola was able to resolve the feedback issue, however the wind problem will require a Remote Speaker Microphone.

Beginning in October 2013 non-public safety agencies began using the PSEC System. By the end of November 2013, TLMA Roads, Animal Control, Parks, Public Health, and Code Enforcement were on the new PSEC System. The Sheriff Executive Management made the decision to cutover on January 5, 2014. The magnitude of the Sheriff transition seemed overwhelming to some. We were preparing to replace the existing MACOM system with the new PSEC system in one night. The effort included two positions in the Blythe dispatch centers, four dispatch positions in Palm Desert dispatch centers and twelve positions at the Alessandro dispatch center. Ten Sheriff stations and five detention facilities would also have to transition - approximately, 900 radios in all. We did it! Once again success was due to a collaborative effort, a trait that the PSEC Team has emphasized throughout the project. There was also a great deal of pre-planning, organization, communication, and teamwork. The master plan included resource assignments, communication instructions, with every step identified. The plan was developed by the RCIT Radio Engineering team, which was key in the success of Sheriff cutover January 5, 2014.