Recent changes to the regional district’s 911 service may not be resulting in the “seamless” transition touted in a regional district press release prior to the new year.
Several departments have been experienceing problems with radio communication since the regional district transferred 911 services from the Penticton Fire Department dispatch centre at the city’s number one firehall to Kelowna in early December. Dropped calls, and garbled, incoherent communications have resulted in some frustration as regional departments attempt to deal with the issue.
“The first three calls we received after the switch to Kelowna were really bad,” admitted Keremeos Fire Chief Jordy Bosscha. “It has improved somewhat since then - the last few have improved.” Bosscha said that were it not for the additional system of “rip and run” - a faxed transmission of the call that is sent to the firehall - the department would not have had a clue as to what the call was about. He said that he had been keeping regional district staff updated with regards to the issue.
Bosscha’s comments echoed those of Okanagan Falls Fire Chief Bob Haddow, who also had issues intially, but has seen some improvement since.
“There is bound to be some of that,” he said regarding transitional issues. “I have heard that Oliver is having trouble getting the signal now, and a few of our guys, who live behind Peach Cliff, are down to about half the signal on their pagers.” Haddow postulated that changes to the regional district’s reception of the Kelowna signal - to the school district communications tower on Jermyn Avenue - had caused some degrading of the signal in the regional district. Haddow said he had spoken directly to a radio technician in Kelowna about the department’s issues with radio communications.
In Kaleden, Fire Chief Darlene Bailey reports that the department continues to have problems with signal quality. She too, has been in contact with the regional district regarding the problem, most recently on Jan. 5 after two motor vehicle accidents that occurred in Kaleden that morning resulted in some very poor communication with Kelowna dispatch. She emailed the regional district after the incident to update Community Services Manager Mark Woods on the issue.
“I have discussed the issue on numerous occasions with the regional district,” Bailey said late last week, “but I have not received any feedback regarding the problem.” Late last week, Bailey took the issue up with Kelowna Deputy Chief Jason Borland.
“I told him I was looking at hiring a technician to take a look at our situation,” she said, “but he advised me to wait, as they were aware of the issue and were attempting to deal with it by switching the service provider for the signal from Kelowna to Penticton, something they will be working on around the 15th of the month.”
Woods later told the Review that Kaleden’s issue with radio communications was the first he had heard of the problem, and was in the process of working to resolve it.
In a follow up communication last Friday, Woods responded in an email that, “RDOS Emergency Services Supervisor Dale Kronebusch has been working with the communications team to investigate and resolve the intermittent audio quality issue. We are early in the transition process and while Kelowna Fire Dispatch has worked through a number of small issues to date, the process has gone smoothly. Meanwhile, it is important to recognize that we have backup systems in place and there is (a) plan for continued improvements, troubleshooting and testing of the system.
To be certain that should the fire departments have communication issues in the future, we are again requesting that they contact the RDOS immediately to inform us of any problems with the new system.”
“We aren’t ready for Radio Over Internet Protocol in this area,” commented a former Penticton dispatcher, recently laid off as a result of the change. “It was the plan of the RDOS and Kelowna’s bid, to save money by using the internet to go to each deptartment individually and thus be able to eventually get rid of the mountain top linking sites on Kobau and Beaconsfield. There is nothing wrong with the radio equipment; it works very well and does not suffer from the same jitteryness and missed words that is presently happening.
If they had been able to get rid of the mountain top sites and if they had been able to use internet to each town, it would have been quite acceptable, but the internet in the Okanangan isn’t up to that level yet. They could have used dedicated Telus hard lines to each town - that would have done the same job but at huge costs; however a few of those towns, like Willowbrook, Tulameen and Anarchist Mountain very likely could not acquire this type of line yet.
The former dispatcher, who prefers anonymity, continued, “What the R.O.I.P. is experiencing is known in the industry as packet loss, jitter and latency. It has to do with use of bandwidth. The RDOS tried to use Shaw “business lines”; these are better than the average home Shaw line, however they still “share” the lines with other users and this is exactly why the radios will sound better on nights and weekends when business use is way down. Once 8 a.m. rolls around on monday morning; its back to the same problem. There is no question that these are cheap lines but you get what you pay for and the result is obvious. I have it from several reliable sources that Kelowna and the RDOS will attempt the switch to Telus dedicated lines as of January 15. If they are successful, the improvement in radio communications will be very noticable. This is exactly how Kelowna RCMP dispatch gets their signal down to Penticton.; however most of the other smaller cities in the region are done via Radio links.
I know that the contract is done and we can’t bring Penticton dispatch - but that doesn’t mean, as a taxpayer, that we have to like it or accept service that is anything less than what we had.”
The region’s fire chiefs are expected to meet with regional district officials later this month.