AFRRCS-288-2018-09 - Alberta Public Safety Broadband Network Pilot

-Project Information
AFRRCS intends to pursue a pilot project to prepare for Alberta’s role in a national public safety broadband network deployment. The pilot, if conducted, will compliment other pilots and RFI’s underway, or anticipated to be conducted, by other levels of government and in other jurisdictions.

The pilot, if conducted, will provide broadband data in Ft. McMurray, Alberta and will include five or more antenna deployments within and around the city as well as centralized back-office support services.

Objectives for the pilot are anticipated to include:
• Determining the optimal mix of government owned hardware and commercial services;
• Providing First Responders with a functional, but limited, PSBN pilot to document operational realities;
• Asses the practical necessities of interconnecting application providers with the pilot PSBN for field use by First Responders;
• Document availability of authentication, authorization, accounting, assurance, and accountability mechanisms required to provide a PSBN for First Responders from different levels of government and with differing security and access requirements; and
• Determine the means by which PSBN performance can be managed using quality of service controls based on applications, organization membership, and other criteria.

-Good and Service Requirements
Requirements for the PSBN pilot include:
• The pilot will be in Ft. McMurray, Alberta;
• Utilizing a mix of commercial providers, commercial services, and Province owned hardware;
• Interconnecting with already existing applications to make them accessible remotely to First Responders using mobile technology;
• Verifying prediction models for the impact of distance, interference, and infrastructure on broadband performance;
• Verifying capacity planning prediction models;
• Utilizing the LTE suite of protocols;
• Determine the feasibility of a central service for authentication, authorization, accounting, assurance, and accountability mechanisms; and
• Documenting the availability of equipment in the public safety spectrum.