IP Interoperability Collaboration System 4.6 (IPICS)

Cisco unveiled a new set of multivendor, interoperable communications capabilities for operations and dispatch centers across government and enterprise industries such as transportation, utilities, manufacturing, healthcare, public safety and education. The new Cisco IP Interoperability and Collaboration System (IPICS) solution include support for the broadest set of radio interfaces for interoperability, better encryption key management, and customizable interfaces for field dispatchers. Cisco is working with IP Trade and Etherstack to produce an IP Command Touch Screen Console for greater ease of use and the Native P25 on Android Clients to bring wider field flexibility to support more devices and endpoints.

Public safety organizations are still challenged to achieve public safety communications interoperability across state, local, federal and private organizations. For example, many public safety organizations have vendor specific proprietary systems and still use donor radios as the only way to interface to other systems.  P25 open standards, developed by the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), allow the public safety agencies to achieve true multi-vendor interoperability using a variety of protocol standards. Many other organizations also face communications challenges across existing radio systems and require flexibility to incorporate other mobile devices such as smart phones.

Key Facts

• The Cisco IPICS 4.6 communication solution supports Inter RF Subsystem Interface (ISSI), Console Sub-System Interface (CSSI) and TIA P25 Digital Fixed Station Interface (DFSI) standards.  Cisco provides full support and implementation of TIA102-BACA and TIA102-BAHA standards and allows for arbitration of CSSI, DFSI and encryption, so customers can operate multiple communications consoles on one talk group. This relieves customers of struggles when provided with partial implementation from existing vendors.
• Cisco Video Surveillance (VSM) Manager 7, available for IPICS 4.6, allows users to integrate video surveillance into live incidents. Dispatchers can drag and drop video surveillance cameras directly into incident communications channel providing voice, video, and data collaboration directly to the field personnel.
• Encrypted keysets can securely be sent to the endpoints for end-to-end P25 encrypted calls and allow customers to change over their keys.
• Dispatchers can now tear away parts of their graphical user interface moving their dispatching environment to multiple screens and folders for improved usability.
• The full IPICS 4.6 solution is extended as a virtualized application the award-winning Cisco Unified Computing System (Cisco UCS®) platform, the UCS E-Series. Organizations are able to save as much as 40% in network and infrastructure costs when applications become consolidated and virtualized.

Native P25 Over LTE Mobile Client for Workforce Enablement € In collaboration with Etherstack, Cisco is demonstrating native P25 over LTE open standards mobile clients for Android devices and tablets.

• The P25 mobile radio client application will work on most Android devices for personnel who need P25-compatible radio capabilities to easily talk with other P25 systems.
• The P25-over-LTE mobile client provides native P25 encoding/decoding, supplemental services, short messaging, location (GPS) services, end-to-end encryption, support for P25 over IP and key management using P25 standards.
• As Public Safety LTE standards evolve, users with dual mode phones will be able to roam between carrier based LTE networks and D-Block public safety LTE networks.

IP Command Touch Screen Dispatch Consoles IP Trade, a Cisco SolutionsPlus partner, is helping Cisco transform incident response by integrating into Cisco IPICS 4.6 a new capability called IP Command Touch Screen Dispatch Console.

• This new touch screen console supports advanced incident management and telephony features such as call queuing, call priority queuing, multiple line appearances, and hold and transfer capabilities all integrated with Cisco Unified Communications. This console combined with UC features allows dispatchers to prioritize their work and achieve higher productivity.
• This console is a purpose built complete dispatch unit with integrated audio and customizable layouts to meet any dispatch environment. Dispatch teams have access to integrated, collaborative features for radio communications, unified communications and telephony.