Exalt Communications today announced that DuPage Public Safety Communications (DU¬-COMM), the largest consolidated 911 center in Illinois, has selected Exalt microwave backhaul systems to backhaul critical 911 voice and data communications among 38 police, fire, and EMS agencies in DuPage County. Currently, the DU-COMM network serves more than 800,000 residents of DuPage County and averages over 250,000 phone calls for service per year, almost 700 calls per day.
DU-COMM was created in 1975 to provide centralized communications for the northeast and northwest quadrants of DuPage County as a result of an incident a few years earlier in which a Hillside, IL police officer was kidnapped and murdered by a group who had just committed an armed robbery. The officer, who was unaware of the robbery, stopped their vehicle for a routine traffic violation and radioed to his dispatcher but, because of channel congestion, the dispatcher never heard his call. As a direct result of this tragic incident, local, state, and federal government agencies worked together to design and create smaller radio networks to mitigate traffic congestion.
“Our network helps ensure the public safety of our residents and our first responders and, as such, we carefully select our technology partners,” said Brian Tegtmeyer, executive director at DU-COMM. “We needed a highly reliable and resilient carrier-grade wireless backhaul system, and Exalt has exceeded our expectations. The Exalt systems provide carrier class reliability and redundancy, which is critical in a public safety network.”
DU-COMM selected Exalt 4.9 GHz all-outdoor and 11 GHz split-mount systems based on their high-performance and unprecedented reliability, and DU-COMM has plans to expand the use of the Exalt systems to eventually replace its legacy phone lines completely. DU-COMM worked with A Beep, an Exalt partner located in Joliet, IL on the deployment.
“As public safety networks struggle with the cost, security, and evolving technology challenges of building failsafe networks, Exalt systems provide an upgrade path to higher capacity, enabling public safety agencies to migrate their networks to IP and manage spending to match system requirements over time,” said Mark Davis, Exalt senior director of product marketing. “Our systems also offer a number of security options including 256-bit AES encryption, to enable ultra-secure transmission.”
