The Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications System (LA-RICS) is proposing building out 48 permanent LTE sites and two microwave facilities as a baseline public safety broadband network in its region, it said in a response submitted to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration this week (TRDaily, April 13) in the wake of the federal government’s suspension of further construction of the LA-RICS project.
The suspension came after the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the Los Angeles City Council voted to halt LA-RICS construction of cell sites on government-owned land in their jurisdictions, including at fire and police stations.
LA-RICS faces a Sept. 30 deadline to complete spending under its $154.6 million Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) grant. Los Angeles officials are hoping to convince Congress to extend the deadline. LA-RICS declined to release its filing. NTIA has also said it does not plan to release the filing.
In the plan it submitted this week, LA-RICS said it would “deploy a Public Safety Broadband Network (PSBN) across all of Los Angeles County, featuring forty six (46) hardened, public safety grade, wireless 700 MHz broadband sites and an additional two (2) microwave-only installations. These forty eight (48) sites form the Baseline PSBN for the Authority’s response to the Corrective Action Plan (CAP), and can be constructed by the end of the BTOP performance period if construction is permitted to start by no later than May 1, 2015.”
LA-RICS added, “In addition to the 46 permanent PSBN sites on Member Agency and independent city locations, the Authority is planning additional groups of sites to serve as augmentation options that will provide substantial increases to the PSBN’s coverage and capacity. There are two primary augmentation options. The first is comprised of locations where the Authority will deploy a Cell on Wheels (COW). The second is the inclusion of two City of Los Angeles proprietary department sites (Los Angeles Port Authority and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power). These locations will serve to strategically address the loss of the City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County Fire Department (LACF) sites.”
LA-RICS also said that “[t]he final option, which is not currently recommended as part of this response, is the potential inclusion of the original Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) PSBN sites. The City of Los Angeles is evaluating the issues related to the PSBN project and is working with their relevant stakeholders to discuss their concerns. These sites may be reintroduced as viable project sites within the grant performance period once existing issues are resolved with the City of Los Angeles. Although the discussions are ongoing and yet unresolved, the Authority believes that it is still important to consider their impacts on the PSBN. Each of these augmentation groups are designed to provide additional coverage and critical capacity. Although each potential group would provide significant contributions, the Baseline System consisting of the forty eight (48) permanent public safety sites will provide the viable network required by users.”
The 48 sites include 30 sites owned or leased by the county and 18 independent city sites, LA-RICS said. LA-RICS originally planned to deploy 232 cell sites.
LA-RICS is one of five early builders that is working with the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) to provide lessons ahead of public safety broadband deployment across the rest of the country. – Paul Kirby, paul.kirby@wolterskluwer.com