City of Lexington, KY, USA

The City of Lexington was facing major interoperability issues. Their VHF system was old, proprietary and outdated.

Robert Stack, Director of Enhanced 911, commented, "The police and fire departments were never able to communicate with each other unless we had two radios in vehicles. That's not really seamless interoperability."

Scott Lanter, Director of Public Safety Operations for Blue Grass Airport, added, "We had to deal with a lot of proprietary technologies. This radio would only talk to that radio and so forth. We didn't like those restrictions."

Robert Stack adds, "Proprietary systems had also hamstrung agency decision making. They could buy only one brand of portable or mobile. When it was time to buy spare parts for a system there was no choice but to go back to the vendor and pay whatever price they wanted to charge. We didn't want that situation again so we were very specific that we were looking for open standards in everything that we did, that we were looking for non-proprietary features as much as possible so that we could get the best price and be good stewards of our taxpayers' money."

The City and Airport received a radio network that met their expectations and delivered on promises. Scott Lanter says, "We're really impressed. What you said it would do, it does."

There were challenges in setting up the system. These were all overcome and strengthened the relationships between City of Lexington, Tait, and Airbus DS Communications. Robert Stack explained, "You cannot implement a radio system without running into issues. It will happen. It happens anywhere that you go but if everybody is being honest with each other and overcoming the obstacles, I think you end this type of process trusting the person on the other side. They tell you everything you need to know and you can make good, solid decisions based on that information."

Rahsaan Berry, a police officer and end-user of the Tait radio, was also pleased with the results, "The new system allows us to do our job more effectively and efficiently. The audio is clearer and it doesn't interrupt us as we talk. One person talks and we can get that communication out there as soon as possible".