Four southeastern Idaho counties will now benefit from reliable emergency communications thanks to the implementation of an open, standards-based shared voice communication system via a collaborative initiative between Avtec and Etherstack. Of the four, Bonneville County, Idaho was the first to be successfully deployed and the call center went live on March 1, 2013. Both companies will work together to implement the P25 CSSI open standard infrastructure within the remaining counties. The four counties which will benefit from the new emergency communications are Bonneville, Fremont, Jefferson, and Madison which are a part of the Eastern Idaho Cooperative Agencies Wireless Interoperable Network (EICAWIN).
In a statement, Kevin Williams, vice president of product development at Avtec, said that, "Our project with Etherstack in Bonneville County shows the progress the industry has made in deploying systems based on open standards. We are pleased to be a part of this project to ensure that these Idaho communities have continuous and reliable emergency communications."
The Bonneville County 911 call center, which provides police; fire and emergency and medical response support, will now leverage 10 new Avtec Scout consoles designed within the newly renovated 911 dispatch center. Along with the P25 CSSI wireline interface to the Etherstack system, Bonneville County will benefit from enhanced redundancy via 16 wireless mobile radio connections based on Scout's Radio over IP Outpost gateways.
Doug Chapman, Etherstack's vice president of business development, North America said that, "Etherstack is committed to open standards and excited to be partnering with Avtec to implement this important solution in southeastern Idaho.”
The Outpost gateways capable of delivering both primary and backup communications will ensure the county has uninterrupted communications even during a disaster. The Bonneville County system can support 60 simultaneous talkgroups, and also features an option for failover and redundancy along with other counties. Etherstack will continue to support the development of the P25 infrastructure which incorporates radio technology from a number of different vendors.