Richland County reviews proposals to replace aging public-safety radio system; project budget estimated at about $7.5 million

Mike Day, a presenter at the Richland County meeting, summarized two proposals the county received in response to a request for proposals to replace the county's public-safety radio system and described key technical trade-offs, coverage goals and a preliminary budget estimate.

Day said the county asked vendors to design systems that would "cover 95% of the area that we identified," stressing that the county was seeking both strong coverage and long-term operational reliability.

The presentation compared two vendor teams: Baycom (a Motorola Solutions dealer) and General Communications (a Harris dealer that also proposes equipment from Tait Communications). Day said the county received two primary proposals and several alternates from the two vendors; the evaluation package the county is using organizes those into five proposals for comparison.

Why it matters: the county's existing repeater equipment is "severely past life support," Day said, and the replacement would be intended to serve public-safety users for a decade or more. The technical differences among proposals affect how many tower sites, channels and backup systems the county would need, which in turn drives civil and recurring operating costs.

Technical scope and coverage Day described the county's core requirements: simulcast operation (multiple sites transmitting in coordination), P25 digital operation on conventional repeaters (Phase 1), and design assumptions that account for worst-case "talk-in" performance, particularly for portable radios used on the hip with speaker mics. The RFP asked vendors to design for 95% coverage inside the county border and also included an alternate area defined as the county border plus a one-mile buffer.

On channels, the RFP's primary request sought four repeater channels (two more than the county's current two-channel arrangement). Day said vendors also submitted alternates that either added a fifth channel or reduced channel count to three, to show how capacity choices affect cost.

Site counts and backhaul Day said Baycom's primary design listed 13 sites while General Communications' primary design listed 10 sites; Baycom's alternate showed about eight sites and Gencom's alternate was described as barely below the 95% target in a nine-site layout. The vendors proposed a mix of transmit/receive sites and receive-only sites to address VHF "talk-in" limitations.

Backhaul was presented as critical: both vendors proposed microwave links to interconnect sites. Day outlined two topologies vendors used in proposals: ring links (two separate paths to a site for redundancy) and spur links (single-path links that can "island" if the microwave path fails). He said the county is treating ring links as more resilient and that civil-engineering and site lease costs will be standardized in the county's evaluation.

Additional system elements and reliability Day said paging would remain VHF analog and vendors proposed paging transmitters at most sites. Console equipment proposed included Motorola's 7500-series consoles (in Baycom's package) and a Mindshare console in Gencom's package. Day said vendors proposed microwave connectivity between tower sites and the courthouse console locations, with backup radio units as a contingency if network connectivity to consoles is lost.

Day noted the PSAP connection includes at least one spur in one vendor design, which creates a potential single point of failure for console connectivity; he described this as an item the county needs to address in detailed design.

Standards and upgrade path Day said the county's immediate design is P25 Phase 1 conventional operation (the available market option) and explained that Phase 2 (which supports two simultaneous voice paths on the same channel) is typically available only in trunked systems today. He said industry work is ongoing to support conventional Phase 2 in future standards, which could allow greater capacity if and when equipment and standards mature and the county chooses upgrades.

Budget and timeline Day presented a budgetary project estimate centered on vendor system costs, professional services (civil engineering, consulting), civil/site costs (towers, shelters, generators) and contingency. He said the current project-level budget estimate is about $7.5 million and that the county is using standardized cost assumptions to compare vendor designs. He estimated a vendor contract through deployment would likely take about 18 to 24 months, with additional time for detailed civil analysis and tower-owner approvals.

Remaining questions and next steps Day identified outstanding items that require detailed design or clarification from vendors, including structural analysis for proposed tower-mounted equipment, firm pricing for jail door paging or intercom modifications (not yet folded into the budget), whether specific mutual-aid channels or other secondary channels are included, and final decisions about channel capacity vs. site count.

No formal procurement decision was recorded during this meeting; the presentation was a step in the county's evaluation process. Day said staff will continue follow-up with vendors and with county budget staff to refine borrowing and implementation plans.

Ending: Day said the county will continue the evaluation and return with more detail at subsequent meetings once vendors and civil engineers complete the next level of design work.