Virginia Interoperability Plan

The attack on New York City and the Pentagon illustrated the need for responding public safety agencies to be able to communicate with one another and have an incident command structure put into place. Virginia's public safety agencies operate on several radio frequency bands and on hundreds of frequencies within those bands. Communications interoperability has been identified by federal, state and local emergency planners as essential to improved response to these terrorist incidents and other emergencies. The State of Virginia will employ a consultant to develop a State-wide emergency communications plan to address communications equipment and interoperability needs of first responders throughout the state. The planning process will include meetings with state and local stakeholder groups to identify needs and a review of the various technologies and other state plans to identify interoperability solutions. Once potential solutions are developed, up to five demonstration sites will be developed to test the solutions.

ca/ncf