Interoperability’s Challenges Still the Same, Only Worse

Photo illustrating multi-agency incident

Interoperability isn't just technology...

There has been a lot of complaining recently that 20+ years after work began on the P25 standard, we still don’t have interoperability. Well, that’s true to some degree. Public safety networks still CAN’T talk to each other, but it’s more like 40 years. Project FIRESCOPE was born after the disastrous Laguna Fire in San Diego County in 1970, and, while it wasn’t then called “interoperability,” achieving more interoperable communications was a key goal. Technical issues aren’t the problem – nothing is more interoperable than good old fashioned VHF radios with common frequencies. Proprietary competing technologies developed as proprietary protocols under the patently false guise of being “open standards,” poor or non-existent band-planning, and a plethora of much less complex yet seemingly harder-to-solve issues stand in our way. The abject refusal by so many agencies to adopt clear text is perhaps the most insidious blockade to true interoperability. Too much posturing, too much pretending that “innovative” technical solutions like P25, too much parochialism in matters both technical and operational will keep us from interoperability far longer than any technical issues.

We also need to acknowledge that not everybody should be able to talk to everybody else. We need communications discipline (starting with clear text) and communications plans. Everybody who NEEDS to talk to somebody should be able to, but opening up all channels/frequencies/talk-groups to everyone to communicate with everyone else builds in failure and users going “missing” from the appropriate channel plan and is an instant and serious life-safety hazard for public safety practitioners.