As the World Cup unfolds in North America, all eyes have turned to Dallas — the city hosting the most games in the United States. Large-scale events like this pose equally large challenges for public safety professionals like Jonathan “CJ” Holt, IT Radio System Infrastructure Program Administrator for the City of Dallas.
Holt and his team were prepared for the World Cup, having created communications plans for major events — including the Super Bowl and diplomatic visits — since 2011. Using these experiences, they got to work ensuring public safety and stakeholders that needed to communicate would be connected.
Building for scale
Everything is amplified at the World Cup, including the crowds and the number of public safety teams protecting them. The size and complexity brought new challenges to the Radio Communications Committee, the committee stood up to address communications interoperability amongst agencies.
The challenge — how to enable communications for agencies and officials that are not local to the Dallas area. Normally, issuing cache or spare radios is the quick and simple solution. However, this was not a practical solution for teams that are constantly moving between cities.
“When a foreign agency is coming, or even just first responders from another city or state, they may not have communications capability with our local public safety agencies,” explained Holt. “How do we ensure that they have the ability to communicate with whomever they need to, whenever they need to, and when properly authorized?”
This required the need to think outside the box and come up with a non-standard solution. Holt’s team had the idea to bring in all the national cellular providers, including FirstNet. They asked for solutions to ensure they can communicate with all responding agencies. FirstNet and other vendors accepted the challenge and provided resources to the Dallas team.
America250 and the World Cup
In addition to preparing for World Cup events, Dallas and its nearby communities of Arlington, Addison, Fort Worth, and Frisco had to plan for simultaneous large-scale America250 celebrations.
They knew crowds would continue to expand during these celebrations and congestion on broadband networks would reach peak capabilities. Having FirstNet would ensure that the first responders in Dallas and neighboring regions could communicate, even as crowds swelled.
“FirstNet already carves out bandwidth for public safety, giving us the ability to communicate. It not only helps with interoperability between everybody, but also helps with operability,” emphasized Holt.
Ready to weather the storm
While soccer fans follow the results of each match, weather and public safety professionals are also tracking hurricane season in the Gulf. Although Dallas is often safe from hurricanes, it serves as an evacuation point for cities along the Texas coast.
With seven World Cup matches planned for Houston, the City of Dallas had to prepare for an even greater influx of people should a hurricane occur. Up to ten national teams, their security teams, and hundreds of thousands of fans — along with local residents — would need to evacuate to Dallas should there be a hurricane.
To prepare for this possibility, FirstNet and other cellular vendors worked closely with the City of Dallas to ensure capabilities existed ahead of time. “If an evacuation event were to occur, we have already planned statewide interoperability resources that will bring in the ability to communicate from Dallas to Houston to Austin to San Antonio on numerous mediums such as cellular push-to-talk and radio,” said Holt.
Wash, rinse, repeat
Even with all these known and unknown challenges, Holt is confident he and his team can handle whatever comes their way. The region’s framework for interoperability is built upon existing relationships, shared radio systems, and established regional plans. Building off their existing set up and adding new capabilities enabled by FirstNet and other cellular vendors, North Texas public safety agencies are ready to handle the World Cup, America250 planned events, and any unplanned events that may come their way.
“We're going to get through this, look back, and go, ‘Wow, we worried a lot, but we were ready.’ Then we'll package up the plans for next time,” said Holt. “Wash, rinse, repeat.”
