On 1/4/2010 2:03 PM, Jed Barton wrote:
Hey guys,
I am working on a project and am wondering if anyone has done this.
Here's the proposal, to setup a dispatch center for an FD, where the
dispatchers can sit at home and work the entire thing.
This is not a very busy department, that's why they thought it would
be good
to do it.
I've done a lot of research, and it can certainly be done.
This obviously brings up a lot of debate for a number of reasons. In
looking at it though, the relyability of the net is very good compared
to a
verizon phone line.
Curious if anyone has done something like this before.
For the phone system, we'reusing a virtual phone system that has proven
relyability.
Thanks,
Jed
I was going to bring up my usual rants about building things "right"
when doing VoIP linking, but I've come up with a new way to deal with
this recurring question from well-meaning folks who just want to save
some money...
Ask your constituents. If they agree that the dispatchers can sit at
home and work reliably when they're bleeding to death in a car wreck, go
for it.
Otherwise, no matter how expensive it is, they probably expect something
better from their tax dollars and you'll have to get them to go fight
for a real budget for you, hopefully at the expense of some other local
government pork project, and not by raising taxes.
Priorities, priorities...
Let us know which area you live in so we can all call the Press and have
them come over to ask some pointed questions of your elected officials
who are directing you to even THINK about using cheap VoIP solutions,
without an experienced IP Network Engineer involved, for Public Safety
Dispatch.
Seriously. You don't sound qualified to be building this, even if it
were a good idea. If I lived there I'd want someone who'd had at least
15 or more years of IP networking design in a high-availability
zero-downtime environment designing such a system. And residential
broadband ALWAYS comes with the disclaimer that it's 100% NOT
guaranteed. Ever. There's network design flaw #1.
Nate WY0X
