City Managing Director Philip R. Goldsmith said yesterday that a backup system for police and fire radios was able to compensate for problems caused by a four-hour power outage last weekend at a Verizon equipment center.
"We believe this was a good test," Goldsmith said. "It showed us the backup system worked."
The weekend problem was the latest in a string of glitches involving the city's new $54 million public-safety radio system.
But this time, the problem had nothing to do with the Motorola radios, Goldsmith said. Instead, the trouble was pinpointed to a loss of power at an equipment hub for the radio system, which is maintained by Verizon at 1101 Market St.
"We've isolated this issue to a Verizon issue," Goldsmith said.
The emergency was triggered when power at the Center City building was shut down for routine maintenance for 12 hours beginning 6 p.m. Saturday. The system switched to a battery source - but the batteries could provide power for only eight hours.
With the batteries running low, Verizon dispatched a technician to the site, but the office building was locked for the night, Goldsmith said.
At 3:25 a.m., the radio system began reporting multiple failures in links as a result of a loss of battery power.
"Police radios went to a backup system within seconds," Goldsmith said. Firefighters were forced to switch to portable radio consoles.
With the backup system, police and fire units were not able to broadcast in a wide area and could not communicate with dispatchers.
The backup system was activated from 3:25 a.m. until 7:22 a.m. Sunday. "The fire commissioner and Police Department said there were no incidents Sunday that we could not take care of," Goldsmith said.
Verizon routes circuits for the public-safety radio network through the Market Street office location. The circuits connect broadcast sites at City Hall and Roxborough with remote tower sites.
When power in the building resumed, dispatchers were able to continue using their primary consoles.
Councilman Frank Rizzo said Council would resume hearings on the radio system before the end of the year, with new focus on companies such as Verizon that support the system.
"We need to identify every vulnerable area to this system," Rizzo said.
