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 an emergency basis," Nathan Hinkle, the county telecommunications manager, told commissioners. Hinkle said he helped request the outside evaluation after persistent outages and alarm‑notification failures were reported to the board earlier this year.

Local first responders told the commission they support the Motorola option. "System failures compromise the safety of our residents and first responders," Chris Byrne, fire chief for the City of Marco Island and president of the Collier County Fire and EMS Chiefs Association, said. "On behalf of the fire chiefs, our firefighters and paramedics, we seek your support of option 2. We have invested significantly in Motorola radio equipment and software." Former Greater Naples Fire Chief Nolan Sapp described multiple historic outages during hurricanes and other incidents and urged the county to move to a platform that first responders consider reliable.

Representatives of the county's current maintenance contractor, Communications International, disputed parts of the presentation and said the L3Harris platform can be upgraded in phases at lower cost. Todd Reed of Communications International said his firm believes it can deliver the MCP improvements for substantially less than the Motorola estimate.

MCP supplied ballpark budgets: roughly $50–$60 million for a Motorola buildout and about $30–$38 million for an upgraded L3Harris option in an apples‑to‑apples site/channel configuration. MCP estimated annual maintenance at roughly 10% of infrastructure cost (about $4.5 million on the Motorola estimate) versus about $1.2 million current annual maintenance. MCP emphasized the county's recommendation assumes 20 total high sites (an increase from the system's existing 10 radio sites) and additional channels to meet projected demand.

Commissioners did not make a final procurement decision. Instead, Commissioner Hall moved, with Commissioner Locastro seconding, to accept MCP's presentation and to direct staff to coordinate with MCP, the school district, the sheriff's office and fire/EMS agencies to produce procurement options, funding scenarios and a recommended path forward for presentation to the board on August 12. The board voted in favor; the motion carried unanimously.

The presentation and subsequent public comment highlighted two operational points commissioners asked staff to study: (1) whether incremental upgrades to the current L3Harris system could meet short‑term reliability goals at lower cost, an option Communications International said it could deliver; and (2) how to avoid creating coverage or capacity gaps at schools during an incident if school radios remain tied to L3Harris infrastructure. MCP and county staff said improving school coverage will require separate in‑building solutions (for example, distributed antenna systems or bidirectional amplifiers) in locations where outdoor coverage is unreliable.

The board directed county procurement and finance staff to join the working group and return within 60 days with a recommended procurement strategy and potential funding sources. Commissioner Hall said the county must prioritize first responder safety while accounting for recent capital investments by the school district and other agencies.

Next steps identified by staff and MCP include drafting scope and specifications for an RFP, comparing phased L3Harris upgrade scenarios to a Motorola deployment, clarifying maintenance contract options with existing vendors, and completing targeted site and microwave resilience work that can be done in the near term.

If the board chooses a major replacement, MCP said full implementation would be multi‑year. MCP warned that vendor pricing for multi‑year projects can change and included a market uncertainty markup in its estimates.

The commission accepted the presentation and asked staff to return on August 12 with options that describe costs, procurement paths and coordination steps with external agencies.