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Broward County Office of Communications TechnologyAugust 2013Volume 2, Issue 3Regional Public Safety CommunicationsQuarterlyPembroke Pines and Coconut Creek Join theRegional CAD ProgramPembroke PinesOn Wednesday July 10th at 4:00 AM, the City of Pembroke Pines was successfullymigrated to the Broward County Regional CAD System. Concurrent with thatmigration, the Police Department and Fire Rescue frontline vehicle laptops weremigrated to the Broward County Mobile CAD (PMDC) application.The steps leading up to the CAD migration required the commitment andcooperation of E911, Police, Fire Rescue, Information Technology, and FacilitiesManagement staff from the City of Pembroke Pines. A special thanks to the City ofSunrise 911 Communications Center personnel for assistance in training thePembroke Pines 911 staff and for providing on-site guidance following the July 10thmigration. The efforts expended by everyone on behalf of this project are greatlyappreciated.The migration to the Regional CAD System was the culmination of several initiativesthe Pembroke Pines 911 Center has undergone. In 2012, the City’s 911 Center wasmoved into the newly renovated section of Fire Station 101 designated to becomethe South Regional 911 Center. The number of positions in the Center wasexpanded to 35. With consolidated 911 communications now a reality, thePembroke Pines facility is expected to host the 911/Dispatch operations for thePolice and Fire Rescue agencies located in southern Broward County.Coconut CreekPembroke Pines-South Regional 911CenterAfter almost three years ofplanning, design and construction,the North Regional 911 Centerlocated in the City of Coconut Creek,became operational on Wednesday,August 14, 2013 at 6:00AM. Concurrent with the CADmigration, the City’s PoliceDepartment became operational onthe Broward County Mobile CAD(PMDC) application.The Regional 911 Center is locatedInside this issueRegional App Updates . 2Radio Updates . 4E-911 Updates . 5OCT MissionStatementTo foster collaboration,information sharing anddata interoperability bystrategically designing,implementing,andmaintaining cost effectivemission critical publicsafety applications, E911,Radio and Mobile DataSystems that best meetthe requirements ofBrowardCounty'semergency responders.

Continued Regional CAD Programon the City Hall campus in their new PublicWorks Building. The construction of thefacility was jointly funded by the City andthe County. The Center is located on thesecond floor of the building and consists of37 positions. The first floor is occupied bythe City’s Public Works and ITdepartments. The second floor consists ofthe Regional 911 Center and the City’s LawRecords Department.LE RMS Password Reset Toolsfor Partner AgenciesPre-ConstructionThe move of Coconut Creek 911 operationsinto the Regional Center is a first of many steps in the consolidatedcommunications project. The North Regional Center will eventually host the 911/Dispatch operations for agencies in the northern end of Broward County.In late March, OCT workedwith SunGard to launch a newOSSI tool for resetting mobileuser passwords. This new toolwill allow partner agencies onthe Regional LE RMS to resetpasswords of their own users,eliminating the need to rely onBroward County OCT for thistask.Hollywood Police Departmenthas launched this new toolwithin the City’s IT HelpdeskDepartment. Officers inHollywood can now call theirIT group for support withpassword resets on the MobileOSSI application. The BrowardSheriff’s Office is utilizing thesupport of BSOCommunication to assist withthis task. Deputies in BSO willbe calling the BSO Helpline to2Completed : Coconut Creek-NorthRegional 911 CenterA special thanks needs to be extendedto Coconut Creek's 911, Police, PublicWorks, and IT departments formaking the transition possible. Aswith Pembroke Pines, the City ofSunrise 911 staff offered valuableassistance in training the CoconutCreek 911 personnel and were on-siteto assist Coconut Creek 911 operatorsas they go-live on the Regional CADSystem. Their efforts are greatlyappreciated.Closet Unit Response Deploys New ImageThe Closest Unit Response Mobile Data program employs annual applicationupdates to ensure first responders have the latest features and functionalityintended to improve end user experience. In 2013, a new map cache inclusive ofupdated aerial views, hydrants, and additional points of interest was added tothe FRM application.The dashboard was enhanced to provide greater user control. Some of theenhancement include, but are not limited to, the following: (1) a NetMotionicon allowing the user to verify connectivity status, (2) A calibration button wasadded enabling the user to re-calibrate the touch screen, (3) GPS programingwas optimized to ensure continuity of routing when GPS signal is lost, (4) Aircardfirmware and software was updated to improve stability, and (5) The NetMotionclient software was updated to the latest version to improve reliability.Updates will be scheduled with each Fire Rescue agency while targeting October2013 as the completion date.

request a password reset. InSunrise Police Department,they have loaded theapplication in theCommunication Centerallowing dispatchers andteletype operators to resetpasswords for their officers.The implementation of thisStandardization of Law Signal TypesTo assist in the effort to regionalize BrowardCounty dispatch services, the agenciesdispatching law enforcement (BSO,Hollywood, and Sunrise) have collaboratedto consolidate the incident types used in lawdispatch. The concept behind the projectwas to standardize the incident types andstreamline operations to allow the publicsafety answering points to use a common setof incident types to describe incidents.Before this project was undertaken, eachpublic safety answering point used differentincident types with differentpriorities. Understandably, the agencieswere concerned that using different incidenttypes and priorities would result in confusionin a regional system.application is one more steptoward agency autonomy inRepresentatives of each agency workedtogether for many months to develop the listof regional incident types. As a result of thisproject, each stakeholder will be required tomake operational changes necessary toparticipate in a true regional consolidatedsystem. As each agency is changing theirincident types, all law PMDC clients will beupdated with the new incident types.Broward County OCT will provide each lawenforcement agency with the updated file.the Regional LE RMSThe agencies cutover to the new incidenttypes on July 1, 2013.at the agency level.LE RMS Infrastructure ExpansionSince 2010, when the Law Records Management (LE RMS) Program was implemented usingthe SunGard OSSI product, the program has grown to include Hollywood Police Department,Sunrise Police Department, and the majority of the Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO) Districts(Deerfield and Pompano districts are still pending implementation). Recently, the programhas gained interest from other agencies in the county to include Hallandale Beach PoliceDepartment, Coconut Creek Police Department, Margate Police Department, Wilton ManorsPolice Department, and Fort Lauderdale Police Department.Program. Although OCT isavailable to assist partneragencies with applicationerrors or networkcommunication issues, themobile passwords for officersand deputies can now be resetFor more information on howyour agency is deploying thissolution, please contact youragency administrator.With the addition of all the BSO districts and the growing interest from other agencies, theCounty is actively working to expand the infrastructure to support the continued growth ofthe Regional LE RMS Program. The expansion will include increases in Citrix hardware andsoftware licenses to support additional users; upgrades to the operating systems on all theprogram servers; and, additional query server support to manage the mobile users.Expansion of the infrastructure supporting the LE RMS Program is an immense task whichwill include the coordination between several vendors and the Office of CommunicationsTechnology. As stated, OCT is actively working toward completion of this project whichshould draw to a close during the 4Q2013. Updates on the project can be obtained from theLE RMS Program Manager or through the Governance Board which meets the secondThursday of every month at the Broward County EOC.3

800mhz RebandingIn April 2012, the Office ofCommunicationsTechnology completed theretuning of the radioinfrastructure and the firsttouch of all radiosubscribers on the 800mhzPublic Safety Radio Networkfor the FCC 800MHzRebanding mandate.The Office ofCommunicationsTechnology has initiated thesecond touch of 800MHzradio subscribers. Thepurpose of the secondtouch on the radiosubscribers is to removeany pre-rebanding radiofrequencies that are in theradio. These include the pre-rebanding 800MHzNPSPAC frequencies as wellas any pre-rebandingfrequencies that were usedby the 800MHz radiosystem. Currently, thefollowing agencies havebeen completed: CoconutCreek PD, Pembroke PinesPD and FR, Sunrise PD andFR, Seminole FR, BrowardCounty School Board, andBSO FR. The next wave ofagencies are Oakland ParkFR, North Lauderdale FR,Tamarac FR, Hallandale FR,Davie FR, and Lauderhill FR.The aforementionedagencies are expected to becompleted by the end ofAugust 2013.If any agency wishes todiscuss the rebandingsecond touch radioprogramming in furtherdetail, please contact OCTRadio Division.4Communications Consolidation UpdateOn Tuesday May 7, the Broward County Boardof County Commissioners voted to fund theconsolidation of 911 & Emergency Dispatchservices into three Regional Centers located inSunrise, Pembroke Pines, and Coconut Creek.The Office of Communications Technology (OCT)is currently working with the ConsolidatedCommunications Operations Workgroup toidentify the operational and technology strategynecessary to support the requirements at eachConsolidated Communications Center.The next step will consist of migrating eachPublic Safety Answering Point (PSAP) into theRegional Centers while maintaining theircontinuity of operations. OCT will be workingclosely with each agency and each of thecurrent PSAPs to ensure the success of thisproject.Local Government Radio UpdateDuring the strategicplanning of the publicsafety radio system itwas discovered therewould be a requirementof a second overlay toaccommodate theadditional traffic loadingfrom othermunicipalities joiningthe County’s regionalcommunicationsnetwork. After exploring options to unload non-public safety traffic to a more cost effective,yet highly functional and feature richcommunications network, the Office ofCommunications Technology (OCT) developeda strategic plan for a Local Government RadioSystem. This new Radio System will beleveraged by Countyand other MunicipalLocal Government userssuch as Parks &Recreation and FacilitiesMaintenancedepartments. The LGRadio Systemwill alsomitigate overloadsituations on the PublicSafety Radio Network.Specifications for theproposed Local Government Radio Systemhave been developed and a RFP solicitation forthe design, implementation, and maintenanceof the system was advertised in August 2013.