P25  |  2021-08-14

County of Santa Barbara Chooses ATLAS P25 from EFJohnson for Its Next Generation Public Safety Radio System

Source: The Critical Communications Review | Gert Jan Wolf editor

EF Johnson Technologies announced today that it has been awarded a $28 million contract by the County of Santa Barbara, California, to replace its existing radio communications system.

The County's existing public safety radio system was at end-of-life and utilized technology that had become obsolete. EFJohnson will provide the County with a modern KENWOOD ATLAS P25 Trunked and Conventional Simulcast System Solution featuring a fully distributed architecture for outstanding reliability, resiliency, and scalability. The solution will be further bolstered by the KENWOOD Viking P25 subscriber radio solution for County first responders and other radio users.

The ATLAS P25 Trunked Simulcast Solution provides Santa Barbara County with the most modern and flexible communications solution in the industry, known for its disaster resiliency and self-healing capabilities. The system utilizes EFJohnson’s unique and patented Latitude technology based on a fully distributed architecture, making the system resilient to one or multiple failures across a wide-area network. The Latitude technology also eliminates the need for expensive central controllers or master sites, enabling users to deploy a more efficient multi-site simulcast system allowing for seamless expansion as needs and budgets change.

"We are proud to partner with the County of Santa Barbara to provide its public safety agencies a robust and scalable radio system that will meet the County's current and future communication needs," said Duane Anderson, president and CEO of EFJohnson. “We are confident that our ATLAS P25 system solution will allow seamless communication between County departments and partner agencies and enable emergency responders to perform their mission-critical duties successfully.”

The new public safety grade radio system will provide unified communications to agencies across the county to include law enforcement, fire departments, public works, parks departments along with many other County agencies. The KENWOOD Viking radio solution includes multi-band and multi-mode products that help provide seamless interoperability to first responders in their daily operations.