Exelis C4i SwitchplusIP chosen by US city

Exelis C4i has been selected by the City of Grand Rapids, Michigan, to provide its radio dispatch console system to the Grand Rapids and Kent County emergency 911 call centres.

The Exelis radio dispatch console system, called SwitchplusIP, will enable both call centres to support emergency calls even if one of the centres requires an evacuation. The two centres will be linked by fibre link to enable access to each agency’s radio systems. Establishing this critical network provides additional disaster recovery options for both agencies in the event of a necessary evacuation of either facility. Together, the Grand Rapids and Kent County call centres receive and process 911 emergency calls and dispatch police and fire services for a population of more than 600,000.

SwitchplusIP uses VoIP to integrate legacy and modern communications equipment, and enables operators to access multiple radio assets, telephone calls and other inter-site communications from a single headset and user interface. SwitchplusIP is fault tolerant and has network redundancy at every end-point. The backup design allows for continuous operations in severe weather that may eliminate systems or radio sites.

The Exelis C4i business is based in Herndon, Virginia, and Melbourne, Australia. C4i Pty Ltd was acquired by Exelis in January 2013.