Consultant finds Collier County public‑safety radio system unreliable; county to explore two‑system upgrade

Collier County commissioners on Thursday accepted a consultant's report concluding the county's 800 megahertz P25 public‑safety radio system does not meet reliability standards for emergency response and directed staff to work with user agencies and return to the board with next steps within 60 days.

The report by Mission Critical Partners (MCP), presented by consultant Nick Falgiatore, said the existing system shows frequent outages, multiple single points of failure in its microwave backhaul and insufficient channel capacity and in‑building coverage in several growth areas. "The existing communication system is not meeting public safety needs because it is not meeting public safety reliability," Falgiatore told the commission.

MCP said Collier County currently operates a mixture of L3Harris and Motorola infrastructure. The firm recommended a two‑system approach: build a Motorola public‑safety core and supporting sites while maintaining the county's existing L3Harris infrastructure for non‑public‑safety users such as the school district. The consultant said that approach would leverage recent local investments, provide improved vendor‑level application integration and create some mutual backup capability between systems.

"I literally have 0 confidence in our public safety system on a daily basis or…