Department of Safety and Homeland Security

Division of Communications

PROPOSED

PUBLIC NOTICE

2500 In-Building Communications Systems Regulation

The Delaware Department of Safety and Homeland Security Division of Communications, proposes these regulations in accordance with the General Assembly’s mandate to maintain quality in-building communications and prevent “dead-zone” areas in new buildings thus protecting the citizens of Delaware by enabling emergency public safety personnel to communicate effectively while responding to emergencies.

The Delaware Department of Safety and Homeland Security, Division of Communications solicits written comments from the general public concerning these proposed regulations. Any such written comments should be submitted to: Mark Grubb, Director of the Division of Communications, at 3050 Upper King Rd., Dover, DE 19904 on or before April 1, 2011.

Copies of the proposed regulations are available upon request.

2500 In-Building Communications Systems Regulation

1.1 These rules and regulations ensure the quality of the State’s emergency communications system by maintaining quality in-building communications to prevent “dead zone” areas and helping to protect the citizens of the State so emergency public safety personnel can communicate during a response to an emergency situation.

1.2 These rules and regulations apply to all newly constructed buildings of 25,000 square feet or more.

“Contiguous structures” shall mean two structures that share a common wall or floor.

“Newly constructed buildings” shall not be construed as a renovation or modification of a building, or an expansion or addition to a building which is contiguous to an existing building.

Systems can consist of, but are not limited to, simple passive systems or an internal antenna system with or without FCC certified Bi-Directional Amplifiers for multiple-band, multiple-carrier use.

If a flaw in the system design causes interference to other systems the building owner or their representative will make necessary adjustments.

5.1 Systems shall be capable of sensing a primary failure in the system, and reporting this failure to an approved monitoring company via auto-dialer devices over the public switched network. The alarm unit shall provide reporting, at a minimum, for the following conditions:

5.1.1 Main power disruption

5.1.2 Back-up power failure

5.1.3 Transmitter/Receiver failure

5.2 The monitoring company must notify DE State Police Communication Headquarters at 302-659-2341 in the event of a BDA alarm.

6.1 All systems shall be connected to a dedicated power source from the building’s AC power distribution panel.

6.2 If any part of the installed system or systems contains an electrically powered component, the system shall be capable of operating on an independent battery and/or generator system for a period of at least two (2) hours without external power input. The battery system shall automatically charge in the presence of external power input.

6.3 In the event that a bi-directional amplifier is employed, it shall be fully encased within a NEMA 4 (or equivalent) dust/waterproof case.

7.1 Systems must have adequate environmental controls to meet the heating, ventilation, cooling and humidity requirements of the equipment that will be utilized to meet the coverage requirements.

7.2 All systems, cables and antenna systems shall be grounded with a single point ground system of five (5) ohms or less.

7.3 System transient suppression for the telephone circuits, ac power, radio frequency (RF) cabling are required.

8.1 Initial testing and acceptance will be completed as described in Appendix A

8.2 A copy of the test shall be retained on the inspected premises. (Official testing form can be found within Appendix A.)

8.3 A copy of the test shall be sent to:

State of Delaware

Division of Communications

3050 Upper King Rd.

Dover, DE 19904

9.1 When an in-building system is installed, the building owner or their representative shall test all active components of the system, including, but not limited to, the amplifier, power supplies, and back-up batteries, a minimum of once every twelve (12) months. Annual testing will include:

9.1.1 Amplifiers shall be tested to ensure that the gain is the same as it was upon initial installation and acceptance.

9.1.2 Back-up batteries and power supplies shall be tested under load for a period of one hour to verify that they will operate during an actual power outage.

9.1.3 All other active components shall be checked to determine that they are operating within the manufacturers specifications for their intended purposes.

9.2 Sampling Coverage Test – A transmit / receive coverage testing of 10% of the building grid will be required. Tests will be conducted in a different area of the building each year so that every 10 years the building has been completely tested. The testing area must be spread out throughout the building randomly.  In that way, we are testing every amplifier in the system.

9.2.1 Test results tabulation form is attached.

9.2.2 Test results must be completed within 30 days of the previous annual inspection.

9.3 A copy of the test shall be retained on the inspected premises.

9.4 A copy of the test shall be sent to:

State of Delaware

Division of Communications

3050 Upper King Rd.

Dover, DE 19904

All tests shall be conducted, by a company or technician with a valid FCC license or equivalent, for two-way radio.

Fire Department personnel or their designated representatives, after providing reasonable notice (24 hours) to the owner or representative, shall have the right during normal business hours to enter onto the property to verify compliance and that the required level of coverage is present. This inspection will be performed at no cost to the owner. Any noted deficiencies shall be provided in an inspection report to the owner or the owner’s representative.

A recommendation for temporary (CofO) Certificate of Occupancy may be issued in the event that initial coverage testing fails. To receive a consideration for a temporary Certificate of Occupancy the facility owner must submit a plan of corrective action to the Delaware Division of Communications.

The owner or their representative shall be responsible for maintenance of the system and upgrades or replacements should the system fail or no longer work in the future.

Coverage/Acceptance Test Plan

For Original Installation

Test Plan Overview:

The purpose of this test plan is to determine if newly constructed buildings in excess of 25,000 square feet have been designed and/or constructed so that emergency personnel can send and receive communications from within all areas of those buildings; or alternately, to verify the performance of buildings equipped with emergency communications equipment (i.e., radiating cable, passive antennas, bi-directional amplifiers, distributed antenna systems) so that emergency personnel can send and receive communications from all areas within the building.

A Grid Acceptance Test (GAT) will be used to demonstrate that the required reliability of communication is provided among 95% of the total number of grid cells at a Delivered Audio Quality (DAQ) of 3.4., (i.e., speech understandable with repetition only rarely required. Some Noise/Distortion).

Terms and testing methodology described within the GAT are based on the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) Telecommunications Systems Bulletin TSB-88-B, “Wireless Communications System - Performance in Noise and Interference-Limited Situations - Recommended Methods for Technology - Independent Modeling, Simulation, and Verifications.”

Grid Acceptance Test:

1. The Facility Owner is responsible to have a Grid Acceptance Test (GAT) prior to requesting a certificate of occupancy (C of O).

2. The GAT shall be performed by an Approved Vendor (AV).

3. The approved vendor shall be responsible to submit the results of the GAT directly to the Division of Communications.

4. If the facility has passed the GAT or the Division of Communications determines that the facility is worthy of a Temporary Certificate of Occupancy (TCO), the Division of Communications shall forward an approval form to the responsible Building Code Official (BCO) with the Division of Communications approval.

5. If the Division of Communications issued a TCO approval, the facility owner will be required to submit a passed GAT to the Division of Communications prior to the Building Code Official issuing a C of O.

Comment:

The test will be conducted after exterior walls, roofs, windows and doors have been constructed/installed and all interior rooms, their walls and ceilings, are in place and doors have been hung as appropriate for the C of O application being sought i.e., shell & core or complete tenant fitout.

The test will be conducted using portable radios which operate on the State of Delaware’s Emergency Radio Communications System.

The test team will verify that the test radios are functioning properly and meet minimum manufacturer’s performance standards prior to test execution.

All tests will be performed using a lapel microphone with the portable radio/antenna installed in a standard swivel case mounted on the hip belt with the operator remaining stationary during the test.

The building floor plan for all floors shall be overlaid with a uniform test grid. The test grid shall be established with each grid unit measuring 25 ft. by 25 ft. Each grid unit (cell) shall be uniquely identified and the results will be recorded in the Grid Acceptance Test Log (GAT Log). The grid map must be attached to the grid acceptance test log.

Grids in areas where electromagnetic interference (EMI’s) will interfere with the efficient operation of equipment sensitive to EMI’s will be excluded from the test and reliability calculations. When determining the coverage percentage, the total number of grids to be tested will be based on the total number of grids in a building minus the number of grids in EMI areas.

Stairwells, elevators and holding/jail cells are critical areas where Communication on both forward and reverse (transmit Tx & Receive Rx) paths must meet or exceed the DAQ 3.4 level to pass the requirements of this test. If an elevator or holding/jail cell falls in a grid area the grid and elevator or holding/jail cell will be tested separately. The test results for elevators and holding/jail cells are not included in the calculation for coverage determination.

When acceptance testing is performed in elevators, the internal and external doors shall be closed, and the test will be repeated on each floor. Tests in holding/jail cells shall be performed with the door to the cell in the closed and locked position.

The test procedure shall require the quality of communication to be judged by a stationary tester and mobile tester while the mobile tester move from grid unit (cell) to grid unit (cell), throughout the building, covering all grid units (cells) on all floors. The procedure has the following attributes:

Note: CP is a function of the Pass/Fail results for each grid unit tested within the building, not the ratio of successful calls to unsuccessful calls within each specific grid unit.

Emergency Radio Communications System

In-Building Coverage

System Frequencies

Note: TX is the specific frequencies transmitted from the State of Delaware to be received inside the building.

RX is the specific frequencies received by the State of Delaware to be transmitted inside the building.

*NOTE – These frequencies are pre rebanding and will change 15MHz once rebanding is complete it is estimated that rebanding in DE will be completed by YE2011.

Emergency Radio Communications System

The building owner and/or owner’s representative shall request services to design, install, test and make operational an in-building Communications System (the “System” -- including, but not limited to, radiating cable, passive antennas, bi-directional amplifiers, and distributed antenna systems) on all levels of the building. The implementation of the System shall require work throughout all floors, including levels below grade, and shall result in a specified, minimum level of signal strength on all floors of the building, as well as the ability to successfully transmit and receive using typical hand-held audio transceivers used by the State of Delaware. The minimum acceptable signal strength and ability to successfully communicate shall be achieved 95% of the time and, with certain exceptions, among 95% of the 25’ X 25’ cells into which each floor is divided for testing and validation purposes. As part of the scope of work, the building owner and/or owner’s representative and the contractor shall identify specific, critical areas on each floor that shall be required to have the minimum acceptable level of signal strength at all times as long as the System and external (to the building) Emergency Communications System are operational. These critical areas shall include, but shall not be limited to, all stairwells, elevators and holding/jail cells.

1. The contractor shall participate in interviews with appropriate representatives of the owner to identify critical areas of the building on all levels that will be required to have an acceptable level of 800 MHz signal strength and signal propagation characteristics 100% of the time as long as the System and external (to the building) Emergency Communications System are functioning. The areas shall be identified as specific cells identified in Attachment C that are used for system testing and validation purposes and shall be referred to as “critical cells.”

2. The contractor shall evaluate the building drawings, 25’ X 25’ cell layout, location of critical cells noted in paragraph 1, frequencies used by the State of Delaware (see Attachment A), minimum equipment specifications, rules and regulations (see Attachment B), and established specifications for signal strength and voice transmission criteria (see Attachment C) to engineer the placement of all equipment and antennas on all floors of the building.

3. The contractor shall specify all equipment and cable to be used to implement the system, installation locations, power requirements, interconnections to other systems, schematic wiring diagrams and a plan of installation. The plan of installation may be divided into multiple phases that will enable portions of the system to be installed, tested, validated and activated in sequential fashion.

4. The contractor shall present its design for the System to the owner’s representative for approval prior to the start of work. The owner’s representative shall not unreasonably withhold approval, but the owner’s representative may request information from the contractor concerning the engineering assumptions on which the system design is based, and may require the contractor to make reasonable changes to its design before approval to proceed is granted.

5. Once the System design is approved by the owner’s representative, the contractor may proceed with the acquisition of supplies and materials, the installation of wiring, cabling, equipment and antennas, and the testing and validation of each phase of the System.

Deliverables:

1. Drawings of each floor of the building that are divided into 25’ by 25’ cells and note the critical cells identified through interviews with appropriate personnel identified by the owner’s representative.

2. A proposed System design that shows the location of all equipment, interconnections to other systems, power sources, proposed cabling routes and the location of all distribution antennas.

3. A final, approved System design that shows the location of all equipment, interconnections to other systems, power sources, cabling routes and the location of all distribution antennas.

4. All goods, materials, equipment, supplies, services and labor required to install, implement, test and validate the operation of the System according to the approved design noted in paragraph 3.

5. Completed test and System validation reports specified in Attachment “C.” A completed set of test and validation reports shall be required at the completion of each phase of system installation.

6. As-built drawings of the entire System at the completion of the project.

Warranty:

The contractor warrants that the signal strength and the ability to acceptably communicate according to the test procedures noted in Attachment “C” shall be at or above minimum acceptable levels in 95% of the 25’ X 25’ test cells into which each floor of the building is divided 95% of the time with the following exceptions:

The contractor shall warrant all materials, labor and workmanship for a period of at least one-year from the date the testing and validation report for the final phase of installation is accepted by the owner’s representative. The contractor shall warrant all materials and components for a period of at least one-year unless the manufacturer provides a longer warrantee period. If so, the contractor warrantee shall continue until the manufacturer’s warrantee has expired. The warrantee shall include all components of the in-building System installed on each floor (including components located on the roof and cabling between the roof and lower levels).

Information to be included in the Bidder’s Proposal:

1. A description of the Bidder’s experience and abilities as it relates to in-building RF systems.

2. A description of other similar projects completed within the last two years. Include project description, scope, outcome, cost and a contact name and phone number.

3. Business references including name, telephone number and relationship to bidder.

4. Project methodology including a description and technical overview for the proposed installation of the System. Include diagrams, schematics, a list of proposed equipment, power requirements and proposed interconnections to the existing system.

5. Project price as proposed.

6. An implementation plan including phases of work and time required to complete the project.

7. A price for an annual service contract for the System to be effective one year after the date that the owner’s representative accepts the testing and validation report for the last phase of installation. Pricing shall include an escalation factor to be used to calculate the cost of annual service agreements for a period of four additional years beyond the first year service agreement. Include a description of the service agreement and a proposed list of services and responsibilities.