Emergency services: Answering the call

Watson: We are going to be able to bring large amounts of data and rich information into the field. The beauty of rich information is that it’s visible, and the problem with audible information is that once it’s said it’s gone. But if you’re forcing people to stop and look at things, you’re immediately affecting the ability of that person to perform. It’s important to remember that field officers don’t always have the time to be sitting there in the vehicle punching in reports while they talk. Notebooks in vehicles are a very useful user interface, but my experience is that their usefulness depends on where your agency is based. Staffing is often such that first responders go from job to job to job, and the only time they get to type reports is during the night. So you really need to understand the operating context, and where we really add value.

GTR: There has been robust discussion about whether part of the 700MHz 'digital dividend' frequency spectrum should be reserved for emergency services, or potentially whether next-generation services should go into the 800MHz or other spectrum. How do you see this discussion being resolved? 

Stefan: There is a government committee reporting back to COAG later this year about Australia’s requirements around public safety mobile broadband. I suspect there will be a large alignment as to what’s happening in the Asia Pacific region. There are opportunities for looking at allocation of dedicated spectrum, and for augmentation using QoS and providing priority to emergency services over mobile broadband networks.

Emergency services will obviously still have their traditional radio networks, and there is a national plan to progress alignment around the 400MHz spectrum. I anticipate that will go very successfully for the emergency services.

N'Guyen: Remember when we talk about public safety broadband, usage is not the same as with consumer broadband. If there’s an incident – say an armed holdup – the officer will have video and it will be pushed upstream, not downstream. There is more uplink than downlink – and this is opposite to the way consumers use the network.

In the future, another thing will be the ability to push information sideways; if I’m working with someone in a team, it doesn’t make sense to push that information to the network and then pull it back down. It would make more sense to push it sideways to bypass the network.

GTR: Recent floods and bushfires have driven new usage of social media and other technologies, while Google is reportedly working on augmented-reality sunglasses that would literally put situational information in front of officers' eyes. Where do you see emergency-services innovation emerging over time?

Watson: The Google-styled glasses aren’t something we are actively playing with, but we’re aware of it. It’s clearly one way of getting clear, precise information to the person in the field – although I don’t think we know yet how those in the field would fully use that information, and how it would affect them operationally and from a safety point of view. But it looks very promising.

I don’t think P.25 is the perfect solution yet; for example, there’s a lot of work to be done to get interoperability down to the finest levels between vendors. Some of the things we will be looking at in the short to medium term will be location over narrowband. We’ve been doing it, but will be looking at developing a more extensive solution that allows agencies to be aware of where their officers are when they get into trouble.

We’ll also be looking at systems that have situational awareness and help manage information, based on how a public safety agency would want to have the ability to gather and manage a situation. There’s no point reinventing the wheel, but we’re looking to use our knowledge of public safety, and the systems that we manufacture and integrate, to add greater value.

Stefan: Innovation is occurring in many areas within the Emergency Services from community alerting through to front line service delivery. For example, in community alerting we now have the national Emergency Alert system, which allows the emergency services to send land line or mobile phone alerts to citzens. Emergency Alert sent out some 7 million SMS messages during the Queensland floods alone.

N'Guyen: Technology will definitely transform public safety to make it more efficient and effective. As public safety is asked to do more with less, technology gives it that multiplier effect. Cameras become your eyes and ears, and police forces can be used more surgically. But the thing to remember with video is that every second of recorded video requires a second of viewing. That’s why on most rollouts, we’re looking at adding smarts that help you categorise it, search based on time or location and so on.

For example, in the US we’re working on a system called the Gunshot Detecting System. If a camera measures the sound of a gunshot, it pans towards that area and starts capturing video of that situation; video is then related to command and control for analysis. Things that can be filtered or automated can help public safety be automated very quickly, and you then make the decision based on operational objectives – and can react accordingly.

Stefan: Over time, the cloud will be adopted by government entities – and information, after being considered from a security profile, will most probably be able to be put into a cloud- based environment so large volumes of data can be utilised as part of a cloud base.

But there will also be application of social media like Facebook and Twitter to keep communities aware of developments. You have two dimensions there: the first is engaging citizens using social media, and the second is being able to get the most contemporary information to the people making command and control decisions. It’s all about being able to ensure the safety of the community at the end of the day, and being able to inform people of what’s going on. – Interviews by David Braue

This roundtable originally ran in the April/May 2012 issue of GTR.