{"id":145,"date":"2013-11-01T18:02:22","date_gmt":"2013-11-02T01:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rfsignalman.com\/fire-code-510-emergency-responder-radio-coverage\/?p=145"},"modified":"2013-11-01T18:02:22","modified_gmt":"2013-11-02T01:02:22","slug":"building-owners-are-expected-to-spend-billions-annually-for-indoor-radio-coverage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rfsignalman.com\/fire-code-radio-coverage\/building-owners-are-expected-to-spend-billions-annually-for-indoor-radio-coverage\/","title":{"rendered":"Building Owners are expected to spend Billions annually for Indoor Radio Coverage"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"High<\/a>

Many Amplifiers focused at a single \u00a0Donor Site<\/p><\/div>\n

Who\u2019s spending and how will it benefit our community?<\/strong><\/em> \u00a0Wireless is a vital element in every-day personal and corporate communications. \u00a0It allows individuals to be untethered and free to collaborate and share information anywhere at anytime. \u00a0Wireless coverage is desired by business and residential tenants and is becoming a higher criteria for selecting new facilities and homes. \u00a0Public Safety agencies also rely heavily on radio communications and new Fire Codes mandate adequate indoor radio coverage for First Responders such as Police and Fire Departments. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Building Owners are required to ensure indoor Public Safety Radio coverage as a condition of occupancy and to install enhancement systems if needed to meet minimum requirements. \u00a0Since the codes are relatively new, building owners often receive minimal guidance or support from the enforcing agency. \u00a0\u00a0As a result, a large number of individual owners, with little to no radio expertise or an understanding of the local requirements, set out to get an enhancement system installed in their building. \u00a0Public Safety Systems typically consist of a few radio sites that provide coverage throughout the jurisdiction. \u00a0Business, commercial, and high-density residential areas will eventually have many individual systems pointing directly at a limited number of donor (macro) radio sites. \u00a0\u00a0Different agencies within the jurisdiction may operate on separate radio system in different frequency bands, further complicating requirements \u00a0for the building owner. \u00a0It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see a train wreck coming around the corner if you don\u2019t have tight control of all these individual systems.<\/p>\n

With costs in the range of $120K-200K<\/em> for smaller buildings and much more for larger buildings, property owners may collectively spend more to augment Public Safety radio coverage than the government agencies are spending on infrastructure themselves. \u00a0In the near future, the building owner, will also be required to modify their enhancement systems to address indoor coverage for P25 Phase 2<\/a> and LTE Broadband requirements. \u00a0The Federal Government recently launched FirstNet<\/a> to develop a national broadband network for Public Safety and have committed initial funding of $7B<\/em> to the program. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This certainly means additional equipment and potentially a major upgrade or replacement of current systems if future requirements are not addressed in the initial system design. \u00a0Indoor coverage is recognized by everyone in the industry as a critical component in delivering wireless services to the end-user. \u00a0Imagine\u2026…buildings are now expected to behave like a perfect antenna capable of radiating and transmitting signals between 150MHz thru 2.7GHz and perhaps up-to 6GHz for WLAN systems, all without interfering with your neighbor or signals outside the building. \u00a0The technology is available, however, without planning it could cost taxpayers and individual building owners much more than it should.<\/p>\n

Public Safety Radio coverage is a consistent requirement for all buildings. \u00a0The core goal should be to reduce the direct and long term costs of the building owner while providing the best radio coverage possible for the people that protect us from harm. \u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Building Owners, Developers and Public Safety should take a proactive approach to the \u201cgrand design\u201d and share the responsibility and certainly collaborate to align interests in developing community based infrastructure. \u00a0The building-by-building approach may accommodate start-up requirements, however, developing multi-user systems to support neighborhoods and fiber optic systems that support metro and larger applications should seriously be considered. \u00a0Taking a system approach should reduce initial and life-cycle costs as well as provide improved control of the radio system. \u00a0\u00a0Government funding (taxpayer dollars) and direct investment by building owners are currently the dominant financial sources for Public Safety Radio infrastructure. \u00a0With so much at stake, building owners definitely play a major role in shaping how radio coverage can be accomplished in their community.<\/p>\n

\"Conceptual<\/a>

Conceptual Diagram – \u00a0 \u00a0 Public Safety – Metro Fiber DAS<\/p><\/div>\n

Radio over Fiber<\/strong><\/em> is a very well established technology that allows RF signals up-to 6GHz to be transported over a single strand of fiber to remote antennas 10km<\/strong><\/em><\/span> away. \u00a0The conceptual diagram to the left utilizes fiber cable to extend Public Safety Radio signals to different zones in a community. \u00a0Each zone connects buildings in a neighborhood or large individual structures like stadiums, schools, and convention centers. \u00a0 Benefits include:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • \u00a0Better control<\/strong><\/em><\/span> of the Public Safety coverage and capacity requirements. \u00a0Radio coverage needs to be everywhere, but it is only used when a First Responder is on-site.<\/li>\n
  • Reduced risk of RF Interference.<\/strong><\/em><\/span> \u00a0You could control where and when you want indoor coverage – perhaps interfaced to Public Safety Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) systems.<\/li>\n
  • Significant improvement in the<\/strong> reliability<\/strong><\/em><\/span> of indoor systems and their ability to<\/strong> survive<\/strong><\/em><\/span> catastrophic events. \u00a0Route and equipment redundancy<\/strong><\/em><\/span> can be achieved very economically through current fiber network technologies.<\/li>\n
  • Future proofing<\/strong><\/em><\/span> for in-building systems – allows public safety to modify their systems without impacting building infrastructure.<\/li>\n
  • Better network<\/strong><\/em> diagnostics<\/strong><\/em><\/span> rather than discrete alarm contacts monitored by a variety of alarm companies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Naturally fiber availability is a required asset for this approach. \u00a0Your Utility company, surprisingly enough, \u00a0should be viewed as a preferred source of Dark Fiber and a valuable partner for Public Safety applications. \u00a0They own some pretty extensive fiber \u00a0systems that are constructed to the same standards as public safety systems. \u00a0They also have a public safety mission and in emergencies commonly coordinate safety and emergency restoration activities with police and fire departments. \u00a0Utilities also have Right of Way and a Point-of-Presence in every building. \u00a0They certainly aren\u2019t \u00a0the only source for \u00a0Dark Fiber. \u00a0Other sources such as Metro Fiber and Telephone Companies are also available in most cities. \u00a0Reliability, restoration intervals, priority of service and cost will be the critical elements facing any fiber supplier.<\/p>\n

    Unfortunately there isn\u2019t a single design to meet every requirement and each community must resolve public safety coverage issues based on the assets and types of radio systems in use locally. \u00a0The important thing in the end, is that the First Responder has the ability to call for help, report on the situation, and coordinate response activities in extreme situations. \u00a0Tenant satisfaction with other wireless systems will ultimately come from being able to seamlessly use their personal or corporate wireless devices to securely access the internet and their phone and messaging services. \u00a0Saving Money and Improving Safety are strong enough incentives to knock down most obstacles. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s never too late for everyone to pitch in and work towards a common goal, especially one that provides a win-win opportunity for the community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Who\u2019s spending and how will it benefit our community? \u00a0Wireless is a vital element in every-day personal and corporate communications. \u00a0It allows individuals to be untethered and free to collaborate and share information anywhere at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,21],"tags":[22,24,27,28,33,36,42],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fire-code-safety","category-radio-coverage","tag-3rd-party-inspector","tag-bda","tag-das","tag-elk-grove-public-safety-radio-coverage","tag-fire-safety-code","tag-metro-das","tag-rf"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rfsignalman.com\/fire-code-radio-coverage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rfsignalman.com\/fire-code-radio-coverage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rfsignalman.com\/fire-code-radio-coverage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rfsignalman.com\/fire-code-radio-coverage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rfsignalman.com\/fire-code-radio-coverage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rfsignalman.com\/fire-code-radio-coverage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rfsignalman.com\/fire-code-radio-coverage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rfsignalman.com\/fire-code-radio-coverage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rfsignalman.com\/fire-code-radio-coverage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}