SR 05:067 - Laserfiche WebLink

through the establishment of talkgroups that allow predefined users to have direct access in a conference call environment, by allowing officers to make contact with residents while in the field thus negating the need for frequent returns to the police station, by satisfying paging needs resulting in the elimination of paging services and through the establishment of a redundant communication system. As a result, staff began to investigate the potential for assigning Nextel cellular phones to all police officers. Because Nextel has a varied and significant network of dealers/representatives, staff worked directly with its Western Region Government Account Office. Following initial meetings to review services, pricing and technology issues, the Government Account Office assigned Campus Wireless to be the account representative to the City. As a result of this assignment, staff did not conduct a comprehensive bid process of all Nextel representatives. Staff determined a comprehensive bid process is unnecessary because of the following: The Government Account Office recommended the assignment of Campus Wireless and staff confirmed its ability to satisfactorily meet the department's needs. · Any Nextel vendor will provide pricing based on the Western State Contract Alliance (WSCA) that establishes reduced pricing for local govemments. As a result, there is no pricing advantage from one vendor to the next. (WSCA pricing is also used for our current cell service with Cingular.) · Lack of authorized local representatives with unique pricing and service features to warrant a bid process. For comparison purposes, staff met with one other Nextel representative and determined Campus Wireless was the most qualified to meet the City's needs. Campus Wireless is currently one of the areas largest Nextel provider and has considerable experience providing service to police agencies including the City of Oakland, Alameda County Fire Department and the City of Alameda Police department. As a result, staff is recommending working directly with Campus Wireless. In addition to the above, staff met with the major cell providers including Sprint, Verizon and Cingular to review their abilities and technology and determined that Nextel's technology best met the Police department's needs. The recommended plan calls for all police officers and certain Police department support employees to be assigned a Nextel cell phone. While the plan could function with a more limited assignment of phones, assigning all officers with phones best meets the department's objective of establishing a redundant communication system that can be used in the event the existing 800 MHz system is damaged or inoperable. Further, the sharing of cell phones, while less costly, is problematic in that the storing of information and user features are typically personal to the user. Further, considering the initial cost of the phones, the recommended option is not significantly more expensive to implement. SR 05:067 Page 2