This report describes three technical strategies for improving communications interoperability among public safety agencies and identifies the products currently available for implementing these strategies.
Interoperability is the ability of public safety service and support providers-law enforcement, firefighters, EMS, emergency management, the public utilities, transportation, and others-to communicate with staff from other responding agencies, to exchange voice and/or data communications on demand and in real-time. It is the term that describes how radio communication systems should operate between and among agencies and jurisdictions that respond to common emergencies. However, different jurisdictions and agencies often use incompatible equipment and radio frequencies, and as a result, very often they cannot communicate with one another. Radio communications interoperability is a critical need, whether in response to a major incident, routine task force operations or providing a coordinated response to daily events. There are several strategies that agencies can implement to facilitate interoperability. This document defines three overall technical strategies for providing interoperability and identifies products that are available today that can be used to implement those strategies. The purpose of this document is to describe these different strategies and to characterize the products that are currently available to implement those strategies. While this guide does not include specific product evaluations, it does explain different categories of products and provides information on the features and capabilities offered by the various products. This information provides the public safety community with a way of sorting through the products arriving on the market to determine what type of solution best meets their requirements.
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