Day two of the APCO Public Safety Communications Conference

My pick for the best equipment display at the APCO Public Safety Communications Conference in Sydney is the NSW Rural Fire Service Sutherland Incident Command Vehicle. This did not have the touch screen displays and some of the advanced technology of some other displays. However, that was a deliberate decision of the designers to avoid technology which if it broke would stop the functioning of the unit. Instead there are relatively old fashioned consoles with buttons and switches and , in case that fails, two way radio handsets on the back wall of the vehicle. I suggested adding several 3G wireless data modems, allowing the use of multiple data networks. Use of the Internet allows data to be routed over multiple networks to increase speed. If one or two networks are unavailable the Internet protocol will automatically route the data over the available channel. Also I suggested seeing if a fax service is still available over the 3G system when in GSM compatibility mode.