M/A-COM, a business unit of Tyco Electronics and a worldwide leader of critical radio communication systems, announced that it has received an $8.9 M award from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) to deploy an OpenSky network solution to provide critical voice and data communications for the department’s law enforcement personnel. OpenSky is a wireless private communications network based on Internet Protocol (IP) technologies that will connect the department’s current force of more than 2000 officers internally and provide interoperability with surrounding agencies. M/A-COM will provide 700/800 MHz OpenSky network infrastructure for the initial phase of the LVMPD radio system infrastructure replacement project, which is designed to strengthen the department’s current communications capabilities and best prepare it for future emergency situations.
The LVMPD chose OpenSky due to its true IP-based connectivity, a technology quickly becoming the network infrastructure of choice among public safety communications agencies. OpenSky’s IP-backbone will provide the department with excellent flexibility, scalability and performance for all applications, including voice, short data messages and file transfers. As the fastest-growing city in the US, Las Vegas public safety organizations require communications systems with this high level of scalability, and the LVMPD system is designed to expand to accommodate as many as 12,000 users.
OpenSky also integrates with the current IPC T5 dispatch center maintained by the LVMPD, enabling the department to avoid additional expenditures on this equipment. Using a series of network gateways, the LVMPD OpenSky system will readily interoperate with the State of Nevada’s Shared Radio System, a M/A-COM EDACS system that extends across the major counties of the State, as well as other systems in the area. Interoperability is viewed as a critical component of public safety communications and OpenSky will enable the LVMPD to interact with outside agencies using disparate radios, regardless of the manufacturer and frequency.
“We greatly appreciate the opportunity to provide the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department with what we consider to be the most advanced radio communications technology available,” said David Bremson, area sales manager, M/A-COM. “Reliable and interoperable voice and data communications are vital to the ability of public safety agencies such as the LVMPD to protect themselves and their communities, whether during day-to-day operations or large-scale emergencies. We are confident that with the OpenSky infrastructure in place, the LVMPD will have access to critical voice and data functionality that will sustain them now and well into the future.”