Grand Rapids awards radio dispatch console system contract to Exelis C4i

Exelis C4i, a business unit of Exelis has secured a contract from the City of Grand Rapids, Michigan, US, to provide its radio dispatch console system to the Grand Rapids and Kent County emergency 911 call centres.

Under the contract, Exelis C4i will deliver SwitchplusIP radio dispatch console system, designed to allow both call centres to support emergency calls even if one of the centres requires an evacuation.

The system can enable communications access to each agency’s radio systems using a fibre link between the two centres, thus establishing critical network to provide additional disaster recovery options for the agencies in the event of a necessary evacuation of either facility.

The Grand Rapids and Kent County call centres jointly receive and process 911 emergency calls and dispatch police and fire services for a population of more than 600,000.

Exelis C4i business in North America general manager Brad Kay said the SwitchplusIP is ideal for public safety dispatch due to its flexibility which provides customers with opportunities for tailoring and growth of the system to meet future capacity and safety requirements.

"From large scale government communications networks to deployable command and control solutions, we are experts in secure communications networks," Kay added.

Designed for use in 911 emergency call centers, other command and control applications, and mobile command centres, the SwitchplusIP system features Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology to integrate legacy and modern communications equipment.

In addition to enabling operator to access multiple radio assets, telephone calls, and other inter-site communications from a single headset and user interface, the system delivers advanced conferencing capabilities when system reliability, rapid response time and comprehensive interoperability are critically needed.