Issue 47

April 7, 2022

Announcements

• Specialty Accessory Compatibility: Agencies that use earpieces for law enforcement, SCBA for firefighters, desksets in hospitals, or any other specialty accessories, need to confirm their compatibility with the new radios. More information can be found on the Radio Equipment webpage.
• DAS Assessments Starting: DAS Vendors are now conducting assessment testing of DAS in King County properties. Properties need to hire a DAS Vendor to get on the testing schedule and learn what they will need to do to remain compliant with PSERN.
• Radios Purchased After Final Radio Inventory Need Programming: Any agency that purchased radios after the Final Radio Inventory in April 2021 and intends to use them on PSERN, will need to contact PSERN-INFO@kingcounty.gov with the radio information so that the radios can be programmed for PSERN.
• PSERN Operator Hiring Technical Operations Manager: The PSERN Operator Technical Operations Manager position will be posted here the second week of April.

Deployment Paused Until Further Notice

The challenges that the PSERN Project has been experiencing with radio programming have caused the deployment of radios to stop. The Project hopes to begin deployment again in mid-April, but here is a summary of the challenges causing delays:

• Programming Complexity: Any time an issue is detected, extensive review needs to be conducted to determine if it is specific to that radio template or could impact templates universally, and if a universal update is required, then it holds up further development. There are over 600 PSERN templates (how radios are programmed to operate) and 74 hardware configurations (7 different base radio models, along with user-requested additional features, configurations, accessories, or functions) so there are a lot of possibilities for issues to arise in the different combinations.
• Regional Interoperability: There are complications caused by the need to have interoperability with regional radio systems on top of the programming complexity. Regional radio systems that PSERN needs to be compatible with include the City of Tacoma, Port of Seattle, Pierce County, Snohomish County, and others. The Puget Sound region is known as a national leader in interoperability for public safety users. It is important that the users do not lose any of their current interoperability as they transition to PSERN.
• Full Testing in Radios: Many issues cannot be detected until the combination of templates and hardware configurations are tested in a specific radio on a live system.
• Learning New Features: The digital PSERN System provides additional features not available in the analog KCERCS, so technicians are learning about how these features interact with other programming as they move through the process.
• Length of Time to Resolve Issues: It has been taking one to four weeks to resolve an issue because of the workflow process that involves multiple parties.

Wave 1 was able to begin on time because the mobile radio programming for the two agencies was ready. Wave 2, however, involves several agencies, including fire and law enforcement throughout the county, so there is exponentially more programming to prepare and various combinations to test. The Project has implemented a new workflow management tool to streamline the issue detection and resolution process between the Project, Radio Shops, and Motorola. Usage of this tool, should increase efficiency and reduce issue resolution from weeks to days or hours. The Project looks forward to resuming deployments as soon as possible!

Progress on Wave 1 Radio Deployment

Wave 1 agencies - Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) and Sound Transit Operations (Link Light Rail) - have now received 99% of their mobile vehicle radios and 11.5% of their portable hand-held radios. Previously, the PSERN Project had expected to complete Wave 1 by mid-March, but three challenges have made the Wave 1 completion date undetermined now:

• Control Station Programming: The Project learned in early March that essential data for control station template development would not be available until April. Data gathering is now in progress.
• Portable Programming: The programming for the remaining portable radios is taking longer than expected and is still ongoing.
• Installation Crew Rescheduling: The remaining Wave 1 vehicles needing mobile radios were not available and the Wave 2 mobile radio template development was not ready for those installations to begin, so the Project had to temporarily release the installation crew.

Once the programming is ready for Wave 1 control stations and portables, they will be deployed. The remaining mobile radios will be installed when the Wave 2 programming is ready and the installation crew returns. Once all radios are deployed to Wave 1 agencies, the Transition Date can be determined.

PSERN Project Schedule

The following Project schedule is subject to change, but are accurate as of 3/24/2022:

• Radio Deployment & Transition: January 2022 - TBD
• Transfer Operations to PSERN Operator: April 2023

Wave Assignments and Scheduling Process

The PSERN Project scheduling team provided Radio Deployment wave assignments and has begun discussions about scheduling with all agencies that need mobile radios. The information those agencies provided, along with the goal of installing 35 mobile radios/day, is how the 12-month timeframe and estimated wave durations were originally determined. Agencies with portable, control station, or consolette radios will be contacted about their wave assignments and begin scheduling discussions by May. The Project originally expected to deploy all radios within a wave before starting the next wave, but the approach has now changed so that portable and control station deployment will overlap with mobile radio vehicle installations in the next wave. Although the starting and ending dates for Waves 2 – 4 are on hold until deployment resumes, you can see the overlapping waves illustrated in the new Radio Deployment Wave Chart. The overlapping approach is possible because the work is spread across multiple resources. The determination of when agencies will begin using the PSERN System is dependent on the progress of deployment, but the Transition Date chart has been updated to indicate the "no earlier than" dates for each wave.

PSERN Operator Planning for Hiring Staff

In addition to the continued focus on work planning and forecasting budgets, the PSERN Operator has been taking next steps to build staff capacity. Interviews are currently in progress for a Finance Manager and the Technical Operations Manager position will be posted here the second week of April. A Technical Operations team of approximately 19 staff will be required at the point the PSERN Operator assumes responsibility for operating the network and start dates for some of those staff should occur prior to the end of the PSERN Project Full System Acceptance (FSA). The skills that will be needed for PSERN Operator technical staff will not be the same as what is currently needed because PSERN is digital technology and has cyber security considerations that analog KCERCS does not, but the Operator will be following the PSERN Operator Interlocal Agreement (ILA) for transitioning some staff from current system operators. More information about the type of staff needed, desired starting dates, and reporting structure can be found in the Technical and Operational Staffing Plan on page 10 of the March PSERN Operator Board Packet. Details about how quickly hiring can begin and who will be transitioning from current system operators is still to be determined, but if you have questions, please contact PSERN-Operator@kingcounty.gov.

Contact Us

If you have any questions, please contact PSERN-INFO@kingcounty.gov.