SPECIAL FOCUS: WIRELESS
Kentucky goes wireless
Internet protocol network
controllers are the hub for 150 base station
sites.
In just four years, the state of Kentucky
has gone from having a handful of isolated
mobile data systems to being completely
covered from border to border. The state’s
wireless network first began forming in
2002, when the Lexington-Fayette
urban-county government implemented its
system for complete coverage over a
285-square-mile area.
A police officer in Frankfort, Ky., accesses
data over the state’s new wireless network.
Soon after the Lexington project was completed, a federal Law Enforcement
Technology (LET) grant was secured by Eastern Kentucky University for the
implementation of a mobile data interoperability system. The Center for Rural
Development, an economic development government entity for eastern Kentucky,
administered the grant for approximately $15 million.
The center performed an extensive search
for the best solution to supply wireless
data coverage
for the 110 law
enforcement agencies across its 42-county
service area. Several state agencies
assisted the center in its review of more
than 10 wireless solution proposals. At the
same time, the Commonwealth Office for
Technology (COT) and the Kentucky State
Police (KSP) were both interested in
obtaining a statewide wireless data solution
for all first responders.
Based on the success of the solution in
Lexington and its selection for the center’s
service area, KSP and COT chose Independence
Communications to work with a phased
implementation for the remainder of the
state. Independence was the installer for
the three base station sites for the
Lexington-Fayette IPMobileNet (IPMN) system.
The company worked closely with KSP and COT
to design a network of base stations located
throughout the state, which would supply
more than 90 percent coverage in rural areas
and nearly 95 percent coverage in urban
areas.
“The state supplied all of the base
stations and Internet protocol network
controllers (IPNC),” says Maj. Brad Bates,
CIO of the Kentucky State Police. “The local
agencies are able to take advantage of the
wireless coverage with only the purchase of
the radio modems and associated hardware for
their vehicles. This enabled more than 435
local law enforcement agencies to save
millions of dollars, while utilizing a
technology that most of them would otherwise
be unable to afford.”
Independence Communications was
responsible for designing the statewide
radio frequency (RF) coverage, installing
the 150 base station sites, programming the
triple IPNC network and tying the entire
system together for edge-to-edge coverage.
In addition to IPMobileNet, the system
contains products from Telewave (Duplexor
and power monitor), Astron (power supply),
Polyphaser (power duplex and rack
suppression), Andrew (surge arrestor),
Chatsworth Products (racks) and NetGear
(hubs).
The second and third phases of the
project made use of existing tower locations
in order to provide in excess of 90 percent
wireless coverage, according to Bates. “Many
of the towers were provided by the Kentucky
Emergency Warning System, as well as
Kentucky Educational Television and several
local governments,” he adds. “By making use
of existing infrastructure, the state was
able to save significantly on implementation
costs.”
The coverage area for the center,
however, was a different challenge than that
of the Lexington and Fayette County project.
Lexington is a relatively small area, with
rolling hills and scenic thoroughbred horse
farms. Supplying complete RF coverage with
three base station sites was not difficult.
In contrast, Bates explains, the
Appalachian Mountains run through eastern
Kentucky. “The terrain is some of the most
difficult in the country for any kind of
radio wave coverage,” he says.
The challenge was finding existing tower
sites for the location of the IPMN base
stations. After extensive searches,
Independence Communications was able to
secure 79 locations in some of the most
remote territory of the state. The sites
included several commercial towers that
added extensive recurring costs for the
system ownership.
“In hindsight, it would have been a
better approach for Independence to have
concentrated on coverage in the populated
areas more than the uninhabited mountain
country,” Bates says.
The issue of ownership costs with the
commercial site rentals was addressed in the
second and third phases of the state
project, where the overriding directive was
to use as many state-owned sites as
possible. This was possible since the
terrain is much flatter in central and
western Kentucky.
“The hub of the system is the Internet
protocol network controller, which controls
all communications between the IPMN base
stations and the state’s secure
communications network,” offers Bates. “The
IPNC acts as a bridge between the RF signals
from the mobile radios and the wired
portions of the network.”
The IPNC is an intelligent router,
controlling and scheduling the mobile users’
data traffic. The Kentucky system was
designed around three redundant IPNC servers
so that if one fails the other two will pick
up the load without any loss of service. The
completed system has 150 base station sites
that cover the entire state. As local
agencies obtain radio modems, the necessary
wireless communication infrastructure is
already in place and operational for their
use.
For connection to the statewide system,
each officer requires a modem, antennas and
a mobile data computer for his vehicle. To
date, 2,750 IPMobileNet modems have been
installed and are in use by state troopers,
police officers and sheriff’s throughout the
state, Bates says.
For more information from Independence
Communications:
(click here)