11/27/2002
Hello, all. The purpose of this email is to provide information relevant to the Wyoming Statewide Public Safety Mobile Communications (PSMC) planning initiative. The goal of this plan is to improve mobile communications within the State's public safety communications infrastructure. If you would like to be removed from this list, please reply to me, and I'll make the change. Please forward this to others in your organization who should receive it.
Robert Wilson
Project Manger, WY Statewide PSMC Plan
WYDOT Telecommunications Program Manager
307/777-4440
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1. PSMC Steering Committee met November 6, 2003. A consensus was reached on the following future meeting schedule:
Date: Time: Location:
Friday, December 20, 2002 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. Casper
Wednesday, January 22, 2003 9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. Cheyenne
Tuesday, February 25, 2003 9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. Cheyenne
Wednesday, March 26, 2003 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. Casper
Wednesday, April 23, 2003 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. Casper
Wednesday, May 28, 2003 10:00 a.m. - 300 p.m. Casper
Tuesday, June 24, 2003 9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. Cheyenne
Wed. and Thurs., Aug 13-14, 2003 8:00 a.m. - until completed Sheridan
Thursday, September 11, 2003 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Cheyenne
Other details regarding the Steering Committee will be posted with the minutes, when approved by the Committee.
2. PSWN Conference. The Wyoming Public Safety Communications Interoperability Conference was held on November 7th in Casper, Wyoming. 84 persons were pre-registered. The Chairman of the Homeland Security Council, General Boenisch, gave the keynote address, emphasizing that public safety communications between agencies are crucial to Wyoming's security. At the conference, elected and appointed officials, public safety executives, and communications managers learned about initiatives that are under way, and focused on improving interoperability among public safety wireless networks within Wyoming. They also heard "lessons learned" from Colorado, North Dakota, and South Dakota in the development of statewide radio systems.
The conference culminated in a presentation on the Wyoming statewide PSMC planning initiative. Partner agencies from federal, state, county and municipal government are working on a comprehensive plan to improve to improve WY's wireless communications system, for the long term. The existing system is outdated and inadequate to safely meet emergency responders' communications needs for both daily and major incident communications. Existing radio systems are easily overloaded by congestion that delays crucial communications. State and local agency cooperation is hampered by lack of interoperability during emergencies; this problem is getting worse as individual agencies independently upgrade their systems. In cooperation with WYDOT, the Homeland Security Council selected a consultant (Federal Engineering), via the RFP process, to work with many involved agencies to write this authoritative, broad-based plan.
The Public Safety Wireless Network (PSWN) Program jointly hosted this conference with the Wyoming Public Safety Mobile Communications Plan Steering Committee and in cooperation with the Wyoming Association of Municipalities, Wyoming Chapter Association of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO), Wyoming County Commissioner's Association, Wyoming Homeland Security Council, Wyoming Law Enforcement Communications (SALECS) Commission, Wyoming Telecommunications Council, and the Wyoming Department of Transportation. The PSWN Program is a federal joint initiative of the Department of Justice and the Department of the Treasury. The program's mission is to plan for and foster interoperability among local, state, federal, and tribal public safety wireless networks, so that no life is lost because public safety responders cannot communicate with one another.
The minutes of the conference should be published by PSWN by the second week of December. The WY Statewide Public Safety Mobile Communications plan will be delivered by October, 2003.
3. Assessment activities. The first phase of the PSMC Plan is essential: an assessment of existing public safety communicaitons infrastructure throughout Wyoming, and requirements for the future. This fundamental data is a prerequisite to predicting the impact, costs and benefits of various alternatives that will be considered. Federal Engineering has developed a web-based survey to gather this information, through "FE Clientnet." The survey will soon be open for PSMC stateholders to contibute information on their systems and future needs. Also, the PSMC project team is working out a schedule for Federal Engineering to interview stakeholders at six sites throughout the state: Cheyenne, Rock Springs, Riverton, Cody, Gillette, and Douglas. These cities were selected to be geographically convenient for people to reach from the surrounding area. Individuals to be interviewed may include technicians, financial (those with knowledge of the cost of operating their present systems), and those with operational user needs. Federal Engineering will use a standard interviewing template, and the interview process should be completed by January 8th. The firm dates, times and locations will be disseminated next week.
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PSMC project status reports, Steering Committee documents, studies done for the State of Wyoming and other background information are available at http://ipc.state.wy.us/radio_index.asp .