Public safety

TLDR: The purpose of this feature topic is to update the IEEE Communications Society community on the status and progress in upgrading PSC systems, in regard to both interoperability and the introduction of state-of-the-art systems and protocols.

Abstract: or many years now, land mobile radio (LMR), based on analog voice communications over locally dedicated radio frequencies and transmission facilities, has been the mainstay of public safety agencies: law enforcement, fire, EMS, and other emergency response departments. Although developments such as trunking and computer-aided dispatch have been introduced to improve the performance and capacity of LMR systems, and access to wireless data has been implemented in some jurisdictions, the quality of public safety communication systems has generally lagged behind that of commercial systems. This disparity in performance and the lack of interoperability between emergency response departments were not fully appreciated until recent crises highlighted the importance of coordinated operations on a broad scale and the need for access to critical data in real time. Now, it is widely recognized that upgrading public safety communications (PSC) infrastructure is a high-priority task, and progress has been made toward implementing interoperability standards and increasing system capacity. Because of their outdated state, in many instances, when LMR equipment and systems are replaced, there is an opportunity to \" skip \" several generations of wireless communications developments. However, for the most favorable design, one needs to understand which features and capabilities of current and near future wireless technology are most suitable for operational and other requirements of local and regional public safety agencies. The purpose of this feature topic is to update the IEEE Communications Society community on the status and progress in upgrading PSC systems, in regard to both interoperability and the introduction of state-of-the-art systems and protocols. Contributions for this feature topic were solicited that discuss recent research, development, deployment, application, and business issues related to the use of wireless technologies for local and regional PSC. The topics of interest included, but were not limited to: • Status of initiatives to improve PSC interoperability and performance • Requirements for future public safety wireless systems • Quality of service and security issues involved in using commercial technologies • Potential of wireless technologies to improve PSC systems and operational performance • Architectures and protocols for broadband, wide area, and digital voice and data public safety networks In response to the call for papers, we received numerous papers of interest. To preserve coherence of the issue and broad scope of coverage, we selected six articles that provide an overview of the state of the art and indicate trends in PSC. The first article, by T. …