Simoco upgrades US emergency communication centre

Simoco Group and North American partner Beltronics have teamed up with Rutland Regional Emergency Communication Centre (RRECC) to deliver a two-channel, three-site simulcast system for the public safety services in Barre, Oakham and Rutland in Massachusetts, US.

Using RRECC’s existing infrastructure, the partners constructed Solar25 to provide a single wide-area communication channel with NFPA1221 standards in mind.

It has simplified the dispatcher experience, with just two regional channels - police and fire - to provide enhanced coverage for 150 police officers, firefighters and emergency medical service professionals.

Users of the system benefit from redundant backup power solutions and redundant IP interconnection provided via a licensed point-to-point microwave ring, and it also manages critical site alarm information such as generator status, utility power status, and thermal and intrusion alarms.

“We serve a population of around 20,000 people, averaging 46,000 emergency calls each year,” said Nick DaDalt, director of communications at RRECC. “It’s therefore crucial that public safety professionals and 911 dispatchers are able to coordinate an immediate and effective response.

“With the new simulcast system, they can experience consolidated communications. It gives them a new level of confidence in the coverage provided plus its ease of use far exceeds previous single-site, and sometimes simplex, systems that involved the frequent changing of radio channels in the field.”

Simoco’s simulcast system relieves the safety concerns surrounding the previous system by removing the ‘channel change’ requirement from each collective agency. It has replaced numerous VHF High, VHF Low and multiple disparate UHF repeater systems, which offered less-than-adequate coverage and forced dispatchers within RRECC to manage upwards of 10 radio channels to dispatch to disparate systems in each community (with some communities having multiple systems in place).

“After concluding that its existing infrastructure was inadequate and incapable of supporting simulcast, RRECC sought a system that could recycle as much of the infrastructure that had been already purchased for the collective benefit of both police and fire agencies,” said Gary Correia, vice president of sales and business development at Simoco Americas. “Our new simulcast system has exceeded the audio quality of the previous system in each area, and satisfaction is at an all-time high.”