Call for help: for first responders, high-tech communications still out of reach.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Homeland Security - Cover story

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LOS ANGELES -- The twin disasters of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina highlighted the need for first responders from different jurisdictions and agencies to have working radio links. But years later, it has become apparent that there won't be any "magic box" solution coming from the federal government that will instantly make the problem go away.

Meanwhile, civilians are connecting to the Internet, sending text messages, pictures, and now, rudimentary videos through the airwaves with handheld digital devices.

First responders are beginning to see some of this technology--common in high school hallways--make its way into their hands. But they are wary. Vendors have sold them communications systems that didn't perform as advertised. And if they buy one system, what guarantee is there that the adjoining jurisdiction will do the same?

Funds are also limited, said Lt. Michael Manning, northern field manager of Vermont's department of public safety. Interoperable communications are his most pressing need. "If you buy one [system], you have to give up another," he said at a recent homeland security science and technology conference.

Luke Klein-Bernrdt, chief technology officer at the Department of Homeland Security's office of interoperability and compatibility said, "There's not going to be one box the federal government mandates that's going to solve everyone's problems."

Various jurisdictions have different radio communication needs--what works in the mountains of Vermont doesn't work on the high plains of Montana or the urban canyons of New York City, officials said at the National Defense Industrial Association-sponsored conference.

One of the vendors attempting to put today's technology into the hands of first responders is Future Concepts of San Dimas, Calif.

Its president and chief executive officer, Wayne Tolosa, said true interoperability is a common operating picture--in other words--the ability for all the parties responding to an emergency to have a screen with the same information.

But the world of first responders is built on radios. "You need information, you need to filter it, organize it and use it. Radios ... don't process information," he said. "Radios don't manage information. They're just a voice conduit. That's it."

That may be tough to accept for some old school police officers, firefighters and others who have spent their careers communicating by voice, he said. Nevertheless, the technology is available, and was used in Los Angeles County during the wildfires that swept through the region in October.

The Los Angeles regional common operational picture program has bought into Tolosa's way of thinking and purchased the company's Antares X mobile command and control system. The alliance of eight police and fire department...