By Tom Grace
The Otsego County Board of Representatives has agreed to contract with Blue Wing Services Inc. of Gilbertsville, Pa., to design its new emergency communications system.
The firm will be paid as much as $172,790 to review the present microwave system and research how best to upgrade it, including advice on details the county should write in its request for proposals when seeking a vendor to build the system.
Blue Wing will be paid from a $304,000 New York State Shared Municipal Services Incentive grant the county has received, according to county planner Psalm Wyckoff.
The proposal to hire Blue Wing came from the county's Public Safety and Legal Affairs Committee. Public Safety Chairman Greg Relic, R-Unadilla, said the firm has a good track record and will help the county ``move our emergency communications into the 21st century.''
Communications Director Roy Althiser said the current system is archaic.
``Right now, we have a single-channel system,'' he said. ``If a deputy in Unadilla is trying to communicate with us at the same time as a deputy in Cherry Valley, the dispatcher won't be able to understand both of them.''
After the new system is built, it will be able to handle several calls at once, including calls from pagers, he said.
``Back when our current system was put up, no one was even using pagers,'' Althiser said.
Blue Wing is likely to conclude the county will need more communications towers and will suggest where they should be built, Althiser said.
The effort to upgrade emergency communications is separate from but complementary to an initiative to extend high-speed broadband Internet to all of the county, he said.
The larger project, likely to cost more than $9 million, would run a 200-mile-long fiber-optic loop around the county. This ``backbone" would link county facilities, commercial enterprises and others on its path, providing them with high-speed Internet services.
Commercial telephone companies then would be asked to extend service beyond the loop with wired and wireless connections. The county could offer to let Internet service providers hang antennas from county communications towers, enticing them to offer service in sparsely settled areas, Althiser said.
``After working on this for years, I see now that we're really starting to make progress,'' he said Monday.
Wyckoff noted there has been some confusion over the initiatives and the grants that will pay for them. The county has received three telecommunications grants to improve the present system, she said.
The state SMSI grant will be used to engineer the full telecommunications system. A $335,000 Public Safety Interoperable Communications grant _ federal money dispensed by the state Department of Homeland Security _ is being used to purchase new equipment shelters that are installed at the base of microwave towers.
Through the office of Rep. Michael Arcuri, D-Utica, the county also has been awarded about $400,000 to connect the county's and city of Oneonta's emergency communications systems. Toward that end, the county has erected a communications tower at Blend Hill near the Oneonta Airport.
Now it must be connected to a point in the city.
County Board Chairman James Powers said he is pleased his board is moving forward on the communications front.
``After years of talking, we're moving on this now, and hopefully in two or 21/2 years, the emergency system will be upgraded,'' he said.
The 200-mile-long fiber-optic project depends on the county receiving about $9.6 million in federal stimulus money, a request made last month. If the loop is built, Powers said, it will be a magnet for firms that wish to relocate to the countryside while staying connected to the Internet.
