Motorola Solutions supports first demonstrations of LA Public Safety Nework

Motorola Solutions (NYI: MSI) played a critical role in the first real-world demonstration of the LA-RICS public safety broadband network. With the help of the company’s technology, the system was used to monitor security during the 127th Tournament of Roses Parade held in Pasadena, California.

Motorola Solutions built the LA-RICS broadband infrastructure that continues to be optimized to allow public safety agencies to take advantage of its powerful technology. The demonstration at the Rose Parade showed how a host of broadband-enabled tools in the hands of first responders enhances their abilities to protect the estimated 750,000 attendees at the parade along the 5.5-mile route.

“The successful LA-RICS demonstration at the Rose Parade created an ideal platform to showcase Motorola Solutions’ best-in-class devices, software and services that improve public safety,” said Mark Schmidl, vice president of sales for Motorola Solutions. “It has been our privilege to build the nation’s largest dedicated public safety broadband network, which will significantly enhance safety throughout the Los Angeles area.”

LA-RICS provides a robust broadband network for first responders to use every day to stream live video, track locations of officers and key equipment in real time to enhance situational awareness for police, fire and emergency response providers. The system made protecting Rose Parade watchers more efficient and significantly enhanced situational awareness for all first responders.

The network proves to be essential during large public events such as the Rose Parade, where crowds overwhelm commercial broadband networks so first responders need a dedicated network for their mission-critical communications.

LA-RICS utilized both a broadband LTE network and an LMR system to enhance operations during the demonstration at the Rose Parade and was able to create push-to-talk capability between both networks.

During the demonstration, Motorola Solutions’ LEX L10 Mission Critical LTE Handheld devices worked with its public safety software apps such as WAVE Work Group Communications. The technology helped first responders with broadband push-to-talk capability to deliver real-time voice and data securely over the network.

Other Motorola Solutions applications used at the parade included Compasscom Converged Services that provided situational awareness capabilities by displaying the location of other public safety users on a map on the LEX L10 devices and at the command post. In addition, to the mobile devices and applications, Motorola Solutions’ VML 750 broadband modems streamed video wirelessly from vehicles and from fixed cameras back to command centers and broadband devices on the public safety network.

LA-RICS is among the Early Builder projects under the National Telecommunications and Information Administration Broadband Technology Opportunities Program that financed its construction, and is the largest dedicated broadband network that is designed to be part of the FirstNet national broadband system. As the prime contractor for LA-RICS, Motorola Solutions continues its leadership in creating public safety broadband networks using both fixed tower sites and mobile LTE devices to provide a robust broadband public safety network.