Interview: Shaun Smith, NSW Telco Authority
Monday, 30 September, 2013
Radio Comms Asia-Pacific spoke with the NSW Telco Authority’s director, Shaun Smith, to get an update on the NSW GRN and the infrastructure review.
With a coverage area of approximately 266,000 square kilometres, the New South Wales Government Radio Network (GRN) is one of the largest trunked radio networks in the world. It takes in around one-third of the state, including the high-population-density area of Sydney and its surrounds.
The GRN was established in 1993 and for around the past 18 months has been operated by the NSW Telco Authority, a new statutory body that also has responsibility for other aspects of state government radio communications in NSW, such as managing spectrum holdings.
In May 2013, following a competitive tendering process, Airwave Solutions Australia was appointed to manage the GRN, taking over from Motorola. Also this year, the authority completed a review of the state government’s mobile radio infrastructure, with an eye to possible rationalisation and improvement of service levels.
To get an update on developments with the GRN, as well as the infrastructure review, we spoke with Shaun Smith, the Telco Authority’s director.
What was the reason for letting a new contract for operation of the GRN?
The arrangement with Motorola as the network manager was an interim arrangement whilst we were going through a major network upgrade. As the OEM, they were best placed to manage risk by being the network manager as well. Over the last couple of years, we changed from an analog system to the new Astro P25 standard, and it was always the intention that at the end of that upgrade, we would go out to market and seek to competitively tender that process.
How long is the contract with Airwave?
It’s three years, plus two one-year options. We were really seeking two things. One was to improve the service level, and that was written into the tender specification. And the second was to give the end users more visibility in terms of where the network’s up to, where it’s going and what the day-to-day status of it is.
When you say to “improve the service level”, does that suggest there were defects that needed to be fixed or is it just an ongoing process of improvement?
It's an ongoing process of improvement. We want to make sure it is the most reliable service possible. One of the things that will happen over time, coming out of a government decision about two years ago, under a premier’s memorandum, is that agencies will rely more and more on the services provided by the GRN. When we went out to tender for a new network manager, we actually rewrote some of the service levels to ensure we get that level of reliability from our operator.
So with the government memorandum, was this to say, “Okay, agencies out there, we want you to start using the GRN if you’re not using it already”?
In effect, yes. It’s premier’s memorandum 2010-16, and it talks about the creation of the NSW Telco Authority and its more central role in radio communication in NSW. We want to, and will, create an effective platform that exceeds expectations.
What is the background to the establishment of the NSW Telco Authority?
The Telco Authority has been around for about 18 months and the board has been in place for the last 12. It’s a new statutory authority that is responsible for the coordination and operation of radio services to government agencies in NSW. We also have responsibility for managing the spectrum holding of the NSW government. Over time, the agencies that historically have been owners and operators of their infrastructure will vest that infrastructure across to the Telco Authority and we’ll take care of it from there - we’ll own it, operate it and supply the service back.
Now that will apply where it makes sense to do so, but not in all instances. For example, we wouldn’t take over Sydney Trains’ signalling infrastructure because it is a highly targeted comms network.
What about radio comms for the railways?
Because it is a specific operational environment, Sydney Trains are maintaining their own radio comms. They do use the GRN for general business, but they’re actually using their own radio comms for signalling.
The list of users shown on the Telco Authority’s website ranges from defence down to local councils. Are there many others that you expect will become users of the GRN in the future?
I think one of the contextual things that’s going on is the increasing demand for spectrum, particularly in the high and medium population density areas. ACMA has actually created a harmonised government band of spectrum for the government users to make use of. That band doesn’t have the same amount of spectrum as we currently use, so there will need to be a rationalisation in any regard. Given that there is an infrastructure layer out there that is a shared service, we would expect that other agencies would make use of that going forward, rather than owning and operating their own infrastructure.
Is there sufficient capacity to take on many more operators or users?
It will be an evolving thing. So as we ingest new users, if they’re small users there’s ample capacity. Obviously if we bring on a large user who has many, many end-user devices and lots of different talk groups, then we will need to examine the capacity to make sure that it has adequate capacity for not just day-to-day operations, but also for peak events that would come out of emergencies, because obviously emergency services are some of our key customers.
Is the Telco Authority funded by levying each user agency or does it get block funding out of the government budget?
It depends on the function. Where we’ve provided direct services in terms of access to the GRN to the user agency, if it’s a small user agency it pays on a per-terminal basis, a commercially comparable amount. So IPART determines a monthly terminal fee for small user agencies. Then the balance of the operating costs are split amongst the four emergency users that currently use the GRN, because they’re the ones who have the greatest requirements for coverage and capacity. Those are the two primary cost drivers.
For other functions, we have an emergency management function within the Telco Authority and it provides the interface between commercial carriers and the emergency services. If there’s an event going on, people need to be able to contact the emergency services agencies, and they do that through 000. If there’s a carrier outage where there’s a large number of people affected - because someone’s cut through a fibre or there’s been some other event that affects community communications - then we’ll work with both the carriers and emergency services agencies to actually get services restored as quickly as possible.
For example, if it’s in relation to a flood event, we might facilitate access by asking the SES to assist the carrier to get technicians to sites to restore services. Or if there’s a particular hazard that’s emerging, we’ll make sure the carriers are aware of that hazard and we might assist them to take some preventative action where required. In order to do that, because it’s not related to the service that we provide as the GRN, it’s actually funded directly from the government.
What is the situation with having the GRN and police radio currently separate? Is there an expectation that the two will one day be combined?
The premier’s memorandum that I mentioned earlier presents a policy position that articulates that the police and GRN should be integrated. One of the primary drivers for that is spectrum availability within the Sydney basin. There simply won’t be enough spectrum for each agency to maintain their own separate private network as well as operate a shared network within the high and medium population density areas.
Is that because the spectrum allocation is being squeezed or because of the number of users that are coming on to the spectrum?
The spectrum is effectively being squeezed by ACMA. When they determined the harmonised government band, it was adequate for most jurisdictions. It’s just that NSW currently uses more spectrum than has been allocated for government use.
So what are the challenges in conforming to that spectrum allocation?
It’s a fairly complex exercise. In NSW there are more than 50,000 government end users across all the different networks; 30,000 of them are on the GRN. As you change the infrastructure that supports those users, there are obviously some change management issues that flow through - you’ve got to teach people how to use new radios, new terminals. There’s an investment required in order to do that; a significant investment in certain areas. And it’s a complex planning issue, because you obviously need to maintain service continuity while you’re putting in place the new infrastructure. You can’t take down a network until you’ve got something else to replace it with. So there’s a whole careful transition that needs to happen over that time.
Do you have any expectation of what that time frame will be?
There are some time frames set down by ACMA. We’re moving towards completion of a large part of it by 2015-16 and an end date of 2018.
What is the radio infrastructure review and what does it involve?
Historically, government agencies have done their own thing with regards to radio communications. What we wanted to do was get a central view of what was actually out there, what was owned by government agencies and what was currently in service. The idea being that over time, we’ll be able to consolidate some of that infrastructure, increase the amount of sharing that goes on and release some funds that can then be used to improve services.
Do you think the network infrastructure will need to grow? Will we see more antenna towers? Are there comms black spots that need to be filled in?
As we identify areas where there are multiple lots of government infrastructure, you’ll probably see a reduction in the numbers of comms towers out there because there will be more sharing of facilities. One of the things we’re promoting amongst radio user agencies at the moment is sharing common tenancies, sharing common towers and actually sharing of infrastructure.
You’ll probably see an overall reduction in government presences across the state - they might be in slightly different locations as we take a more planned approach to ensure that we’ve got coverage in all the areas where the agencies need it. We’ve gone through a process of identifying the business requirements of each of these agencies - what do they actually need to operate their business - and then we can use the information from the infrastructure audit, as well as the business requirements from the agencies, to really plan services. This will lead to a reduction in the amount of infrastructure that’s required out there.
As the GRN continues to grow, are there any vulnerabilities inherent in having just one network, or one major network, rather than a number of smaller networks?
It depends on your point of view to a certain extent. Historically, there have been lots of agencies doing things independently and the funding has been spread out quite disparately. Part of the process of rationalising these services and infrastructure is that it won’t actually cost as much to operate. We can use some of those savings to really improve the quality of service and provide that redundancy into the designs of the network. We may not necessarily end up with one statewide trunked government radio network - it will be based on what makes the most sense. For example, it may not make sense to build a trunked government radio network that covered 100% of the state right out to White Cliffs, as there’s just not the requirement for trunked services out there - there would be another technology solution that would be more appropriate in those kinds of scenarios.
With savings from rationalisation being redirected to improving the system, what kinds of improvements could we see?
We’ll improve the quality of the network connections. Currently some networks don’t actually have active monitoring - active monitoring will be part of the standard design going forward, so that when there is an issue we’ll know about it in advance. There’s a whole range of improvements that will happen over time, such as filling black spots in certain parts of the state.
I think the primary thing in terms of what the authority is setting out to do is this notion of taking a holistic look across all of government. We want to establish what’s out there, who owns it and how is it operated, and rationalising that so we can release some of the value that’s held in it, and also improve the quality of the service at the same time.
Now, lots of coordination and centralisation initiatives are about saving money. The Telco Authority remit is actually about saving money and, importantly, re-using some of that to improve the services that we provide.
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NSW GRN users
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Department of Corrective Services
Department of Juvenile Justice
Department of Premier & Cabinet
National Parks and Wildlife Service
*The ACT uses the GRN core infrastructure to provide a fully interoperable network that is seamless across the borders, which allows for mutual aid between NSW and the ACT.
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Resources
NSW Telco Authority
http://telco.nsw.gov.au/
NSW Government Radio Network
http://telco.nsw.gov.au/content/government-radio-network
NSW Telco Authority Corporate Plan 2013-14
http://telco.nsw.gov.au/content/corporate-plan-2013-2014
NSW Premier’s Memorandum M2010-16 Government Mobile Radio Services
http://www.dpc.nsw.gov.au/announcements/ministerial_memoranda/2010/m2010-16_government_mobile_radio_services
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