Verizon Business to Help Public Safety Stay Connected

If you have been reading this blog for any length of time then you know a little about the Interoperability Solution because we talked about it before with law enforcement programs. Now, Verizon Business has expanded the service to include not only police officers, but fire as well as other safety personnel in public services.

This network lets everyone communicate through phone, radio, or email during a crisis or an emergency no matter what communication system they use. There is no problem with incompatibility because Verizon has figured this out.

The service is an Internet protocol or IP based platform (this probably means something to you techies out there!) and is called Verizon Communications Interoperability Solution . And it allows data, voice, radio as well as wireless networks to operate as one single network. This way everyone that is involved in an emergency can stay communicate -- whether they are local, state or federal agencies.

The biggest reason that Verizon did this was because as most of us know, there have been a lot of problems with the right hand knowing what the left hand is doing in various emergencies. This became a big concern after the September 11, 2001 incident in the  World Trade Center. If you recall, the fire and police departments were unable to get clear communication from each other because their frequencies were all different.

The Verizon Communications Interoperability Solution will make sure that this situation doesn't happen again. According to Nancy Gofus, chief marketing officer and senior vice president for Verizon Business, this system is a great tool for first responders and is part of the commitment that Verizon Business has to "bring innovation through IP".

How It Works

If you're thinking, "yeah, right…but will it work?" here is what they say will happen:

• Police, medical services, fire departments, and other safety organizations catering to the public, first set a specific channel on their radios.
• This automatically activates the Verizon Communications Interoperability Solution.
• Using interfaces, routers and other devices that is at each location, these different channels are linked and converted into IP.
• Everyone is able to communicate with each other regardless of frequencies or communication platforms they may be using.

They have created this service so that it can also link their wireless and wireline calls and email as well as text messages. So, the safety of the community can work at all levels. It can also be programmed for automatic alerts to public safety organizations when and if there is an emergency.

However, this brings a question to mind -- what happens if the Wireless channels are down because of something that happened in the crisis? We can see that this is a great system but it may not be free of bugs.

Verizon Communications Interoperability Solution is the latest in the portfolio of Verizon Business' emergency communications and it uses Cisco's IP applications and devices. No other service provider in North America uses Cisco at this time.