Abstract
Many fire and EMS services across the United States still rely on analog VHF paging technology to communicate emergency incident information to responders. The infrastructure for these paging systems is typically owned, operated, and maintained by the local government or agency to ensure coverage includes as close to 100% of the jurisdiction as possible. This paper proposes the use of datacasting technology to provide a redundant method for critical data distribution over a wide area to serve the paging needs of public safety and uses North Carolina as a test case. This concept could lead to cost-sharing, higher reliability, greater collaboration across jurisdictions, and reduced response times. The public deserve the best possible response from the public safety sector and therefore, public safety deserves the best technology available in order to achieve their mission.
PBS North Carolina, with the leading from the North Carolina Department of Information Technology First Responder Emerging Technologies Program (FirstTech), presented this concept at the 2019 NAB Broadcast Engineering and Information Technology Conference. Much progress has been made since then. Starting early 2020, a United States Department of Homeland Security Small Business Innovation Research contracted a prototype broadcast system has been developed including custom ATSC 3.0 paging receiver and miniature antenna, encoder, on a live broadcast in eastern North Carolina. Our recent white paper for NAB talks about the overall concept and current progress using ATSC 3.0 to
address a critical emergency communications need.
To read the full white paper, click here.