March 10, 2017

State-Wide Public Safety Networks: Brief Update from Aviat

Aviat: The American Microwave Company and The Trusted Choice for State-Wide Microwave Networks

Aviat is the #1 provider of microwave and microwave routing systems to state/local government networks nationwide with 25 of 50 state-wide networks running Aviat equipment.

On top of this, approximately 200 city and county networks across many states including NY, FL, NJ, CO, CA, NV, TX, and others also use Aviat equipment. 70+ years of experience, over 320 employees in North America dedicated to Public Safety, and Aviat’s Made in America products — state/local agencies can rely on a hassle-free experience and a trusted solution they can feel good about.

As bandwidth demands grow and reliability and network security become more crucial, many aging state-wide first responder communication networks are faced with the challenge to upgrade their networks.  This has led to a large increase in the number of state-wide public safety entities migrating their networks – whether already complete, on-going or in the early planning stages.  In many of these cases, Aviat has been a key partner to the States and in the center of these deployments and planning stages and we see some trends prevailing across all state–wide networks.

Focus on Reliability

Aviat has nearly 10dB system gain advantage over primary competitorsThe number one requirement for any public safety network is network availability because Public Safety networks cannot fail. Aviat sees continued evolution towards more capacity, which in turn puts more pressure on the radios and network to maintain a high level of availability, which then requires more reliable equipment and higher power radios. Aviat recently released the highest power radio ever built with +39dBm and nearly 10dB system gain advantage over our primary competitors (which means using 3’ vs 8’ antennas and up to $30,000 in savings per hop over 5 years).

Network Convergence for Better Communications, Lower Cost

To reduce costs, improve communications, many networks are converging applications and users onto the same transport network.  Networks supporting police, fire, first responders, and other government organizations are now sharing integrated transport networks. IP/MPLS technology is being used in most state-wide networks to support convergence over a common transport network. Aviat microwave routers have been proven in many city, county and state-wide networks in converging transport over IP/MPLS. Many states also require design expertise at L1/L2/L3/MPLS and Aviat design services are being used to transition today’s TDM or L2 networks to IP/MPLS implementation.

Preparing for LTE

Near term upgrades to support new Ethernet based networks provide an opportunity for future proofing the transport networks for LTE. Public safety LTE is on the horizon and many state/local agencies are preparing now to be ready for future. High capacity transport networks and advanced security features are two most critical components in the transport network to prepare for IP-based LTE access. Today’s highly secure gigabit microwave networks have been in place since 2010 supporting LTE in the world’s largest mobile networks. The same equipment is being installed in many state/local networks with an eye to being prepared for LTE in the future.