In today’s world, ensuring operational continuity is a top priority for all public safety agencies. The lessons learned in recent years give us many challenges to consider, as well as opportunities to use technology more effectively and adjust plans for future radio dispatch deployments.
What is operational continuity?
Operational continuity is a system’s ability to continue working despite damages, losses, or critical events. Operational continuity may refer to single systems, but it can also mean an organization’s ability to consistently fulfill its mission.
In the realm of public safety, our ability to fulfill our mission is directly correlated with our ability to communicate no matter what circumstances we’re facing — whether it’s a natural or human-made disaster, a terrorist event, or a global pandemic. For radio dispatch, this goes beyond the resilience of dispatch hardware. Dispatchers must be equipped and resourced to perform their jobs remotely or at an alternate location.
How can you achieve operational continuity?
Public safety agencies can achieve continuity of operations and fulfill their critical mission by adopting cloud-based dispatch solutions.
Here are the steps:
1. Subscribe to our InterTalk Enlite™ Service
Once we have worked with you to understand your radio, telephony, and network systems, we will ensure your system is provisioned with the number of licenses you need to support your team. We typically deploy services hosted in a HyperCloud, a standard template of at least three-node clusters with independent durable storage and a redundant pair of static IP addresses advertised in a high availability DNS.
2. Install the InterTalk Resource Sharing Gateway Servers
These servers connect the InterTalk Enlite service through a De-Militarised Zone (DMZ) to your internal radio console network(s) and are the cornerstone for audio integration. They ensure that all existing LMR, telephone, and P25 infrastructure is seamlessly integrated and all cloud connections are fully encrypted.
3. Dispatch Remotely
Dispatchers can now access radio and telephony channels remotely and dispatch anywhere there is an internet connection. While the quality of the audio experience relies on the network and connected device quality, the value of connection flexibility is in the ability to maintain operations inside or away from the dispatch center.
InterTalk Enlite is a web application that runs in your web browser. Once authenticated, it provides the dispatcher with a permitted set of pre-configured missions. Because there may be thousands of potential information sources, InterTalk Enlite missions allow for the intelligent selection of only those sources necessary for achieving the designated mission. Each information source is securely and independently connected directly to the browser, based on the mission configuration. All connections are secured using at least TLS 1.2 with strong and modern ciphers — no connections may be unsecured.
Benefits to InterTalk Enlite
Beyond expanding continuity of operations for your agency, InterTalk Enlite has many immediate benefits upon deployment:
- Dispatch anywhere through an internet-connected Microsoft or Android device.
- Customize and share your flexible interface with other dispatchers.
- Run on-site and off-site operations simultaneously.
- Supervise and monitor what’s happening with one device instead of multiple radios.
- Minimize capital cost and equipment.
- Integrate additional data to increase situational awareness.
In addition to these immediate benefits, InterTalk Enlite lays the foundation for faster and more complex integrations. Intelligent dispatch includes integrations with Third-Party Systems, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Internet of Things (IoT), and other information and intelligence sources. This means a rapid, targeted public safety response that both addresses emergent crises and anticipates the changing requirements of situations as they unfold.
The road ahead for radio dispatch and public safety software is flexible, responsive, and service-first. InterTalk Enlite leads the way in meeting today’s dispatch needs and providing true operational continuity for public safety agencies across North America.
Let’s expand your agency’s operational continuity!
Schedule your free InterTalk Enlite demo using the contact form below today.
