New radio system to link Alberta’s first responders
Posted Mar 5, 2011 10:29 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A new province-wide radio system being built in Alberta will allow first responders to communicate more readily with each other during calls.
The Edmonton Journal reports right now, paramedics, firefighters and mounties have their own communication system and handsets, some of which can’t speak with others.
The new $370-million radio project, to be phased in between now and 2014, will allow crews to flip to just one radio station and get immediate information from different networks.
The secure system will use some existing technology to link 700 different agencies and 30,000 first responders.
The money will be used to retrofit or build new radio towers, so emergency responders can talk, regardless of their location either in the mountains or on a dead-end gravel rural road.
Once the communication system is fully developed, it will first be piloted in southern Alberta between Calgary and Brooks.
