It can be difficult for public safety agencies to imagine a 102-agency, nine-county, public safety radio system. But the Harris County Regional Radio System is just that.

The foundation for the unique, regional public safety radio system was built in Harris County, Texas, which is located in the southeast corner of the state and is part of the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown metro area.

Regarded as the largest of its kind, the Harris County Regional Radio System boasts a level of interconnectedness many municipalities and other regional communities can use as a model.

An Evolutionary Idea

The difficulty in creating such a system is being able to deploy one that can evolve instead of one that simply reacts to demands, according to Harris County CIO Steven Jennings.

"You can't do a radio system of this size without an evolutionary process," said Jennings. "One of the major mistakes people [make] when they start going into large-scale radio systems is [looking] at it as either regional or statewide. Usually the biggest problem they have is in the areas of engineering it correctly, of bringing the people on correctly with the policies and procedures in place.

"The nice part about our system is - being that we did start 16 years ago - a lot of things we've done have been evolutionary instead of more revolutionary, where you just try to implant a whole new radio system in an area."

In the 1980s, Jennings said, the Harris County IT Department was merged with the county Communications Department that was responsible for managing the county's public safety radio system.

Prior to the merger, the Communications Department oversaw 15 different radio systems. The new unified agency consolidated the 15 radio systems into one 800-MHz system - laying the foundation for the Harris County Regional Radio System.

Another anomalous aspect of the system is the fact that it's operated and maintained by the county IT organization and not a public safety agency.

The Harris County Regional Radio Center manages the entire system - from installing and maintaining radios to establishing standards and striking local agreements, making the county the hub of a unique public safety utility. The only hard-and-fast requirement for joining the system is that an agency be a public safety organization.

Since its inception, 40 county departments have joined, as have 62 other qualified agencies from the surrounding nine-county area. These include various county and city public safety agencies, including EMS, police, fire and public works. Houston is in discussion with Harris County (of which it is a part) about joining the system.

Houston officials preferred not to comment on the matter, however, until something more definitive is established.

"It's not a very complex or complicated approach," said Jennings. "We basically have interlocal agreements (ILAs). We work out all of the particulars of the ILA, then we take it through our Commissioners Court, and if our Commissioners Court blesses it, bingo, they're on."

The ILAs work to establish the Harris County Regional System somewhat like a utility company. Instead of gas, water or electricity, the county hosts and makes available a regional communications system. In addition, the ILA contracts specify the installation and maintenance terms. The ILA does not negotiate for equipment purchase. Each participant, according to Jennings, purchases standard equipment from the manufacturer.

"We're like the utility for the infrastructure," Jennings explained. "We do not tell different counties' law enforcement or public safety how to run their system. We provide the infrastructure for them to operate their system."

Like any other utility, the radio system operates on a pay-to-play basis. And also like a utility, each device and user on the system is accounted for, and participants pay fees to become part