Going Digital

Since the 1970’s, the Malden police department has been operating out of the same building, and using the same equipment for the last 15 years. With its aging infrastructure and equipment, they were one severe storm away from losing everything. Desperate for not only a new building, but new equipment, Dave Urban, Public Safety IT manager with the City of Malden, knew they couldn’t have both due to budget constraints. “I knew there would have to be a trade-off somewhere, so I assumed new equipment was out of the question,” explained Urban.

Just when things were looking bleak, the perfect storm happened. But this storm was in their favor. One of ALL-COMM’s sales staff knew someone in Malden and played at a wedding for someone in the Malden police department. This paved the way for Zetron to propose a solution for the department’s new equipment. 

The perfect system at the right price

Anticipating the same tradeoffs he’d received from other proposals, once the proposal hit Dave’s desk, he thought it was too good to be true. He was sure something was missing. “There’s no way this covers everything, something has to be missing,” Urban said. He was shocked when the solution not only included the latest and greatest console with the redundant network, but a brand new P25 digital infrastructure as well.

Out with the Old, In with the New

With the new, 24,000 square foot, state-of-the art headquarters on Eastern Avenue finished, they were ready to transition to the new building and the system. But quickly faced their first hurdle – they were still running some equipment in the old building. It simply wasn’t an option to shut down the old equipment. Both had to stay up and running, plus all the camera traffic had to be routed back to the old station, while simultaneously directing traffic to the new building. A complicated challenge, made simple with three Zetron’s MAX Dispatch consoles. Delvis Javier Technical Supervisor with ALL-COMM Technologies in Revere, Massachusetts, assured that both buildings would run simultaneously without a hiccup.

One Day at a Time

Seamless is usually the last word used to describe a move. Add in the complexities of transitioning their equipment, it was a relief to find out the move didn’t have to happen overnight. Javier and his team were able to take their time migrating everything over. Finally on Halloween night, their new headquarters was fully switched over to the new system. And since then, it’s required no service calls for the console or the radio system. “It’s working great. Everyone in the surrounding communities are asking about it. The P25 sounds beautiful and the console is beautiful. It’s taking care of everything our dispatchers need,” recalled Urban.

Foolproof & Futureproof

With everyone trained and comfortable with the new system, it was put to the test almost immediately when the Malden Hospital lost power. And when their backup power supply ran out, it was disconnected from the network. But with its integration with the Tait radio, they were able to setup automatic notifications, so everyone who needed to know, already got an email. “You know what, you’ve made this thing foolproof,” Urban said, after experiencing the power outage.

The Zetron and Tait combination are a perfect match; both systems have multiple automatic redundancies built in which remove any single point of failure. “These systems really focus on critical communications for Public Safety assuring that communication will be available when most needed” said Javier.

With a foolproof system, the future looks to be smooth sailing for the Malden police department. “That’s something we’re looking for next year, a laptop with a wireless hotspot like we’ve done with other consoles,” said Javier. “It’ll be easy to do, we have all the infrastructure in place now.”

from zetron.com