By Amanda Henson
San Angelo Live
Bucky Hasty, the city’s network administrator, oversees information technology and radio systems, and is the guru when it comes to the new police and city communications system.
The current communications system was purchased in 2007; the radios and the handheld mobile devices and accessories are reaching the end of their service life, and need to be replaced. The life span of a mobile device, according to Hasty is about eight years. Which means in eight years, the new system that the city purchasing today will also require, in all probability, a system-wide device replacement in another eight years.
“We may not have to upgrade so much with the infrastructure, but the portable devices will be a definite, they get a lot of wear and tear on them,” Hasty said, Thursday morning. “If you think about your cell phone, it wears out in three or four years. These [police handhelds] are designed to last a lot longer, but it’s a physical piece of hardware that an officer, especially firefighters who are a lot tougher on radios... They go through some physical wear and tear; in eight years those portables are going to need to be replaced.”
Read the full interview here.