Using RoIP as Part of a Disaster Recovery Plan

When the Kaikōura or Christchurch earthquakes hit, or when a cyclone knocks out power across a region, the organisations that keep functioning are the ones whose radio network keeps functioning too. Emergency services, utilities, transport operators, and local councils all depend on that link staying up precisely when conditions are at their worst. Radio over IP, RoIP, is one of the most practical tools available for making sure it does.

What RoIP Actually Is

In simple terms, RoIP is a method of interconnecting radio systems and operators over existing IP infrastructure, private LANs, VPNs, or the internet, rather than dedicated leased lines. Radio repeaters, dispatch consoles, and other equipment connect through an IP gateway, each given its own IP address.

The technology is well proven internationally. Because it runs over IP rather than requiring purpose-built links between sites, adding extra devices or locations across a wide geographic area, exactly the kind of area much of New Zealand covers, becomes far quicker and considerably cheaper than the older alternative.

Closing Coverage Gaps and Improving Reliability

Poor coverage in regional areas, particularly where terrain and distance create radio black spots, has been a documented problem in disaster response internationally, including findings from Australia's Royal Commission into the 2009 Victorian Bushfires. New Zealand's own terrain, hill country, forested valleys, and a coastline stretching the length of the country, creates the same kind of coverage challenge.

Adding a repeater site the traditional way, with leased lines or microwave links, has historically been expensive. RoIP significantly reduces that cost by using IP infrastructure that's often already in place. Because the connections between radios and consoles form part of a broader IP mesh, the network also becomes inherently more resilient, with no single point of failure the way a single dedicated link would create.

Multiple Dispatch Locations

RoIP also makes multiple dispatch and management locations genuinely practical, whether for everyday operations or as a backup should the main site become unavailable. If a primary dispatch centre, in Wellington, say, is knocked offline, a backup site elsewhere in the country can be brought into operation almost immediately by connecting to the central radio management system over a RoIP link.

Backup dispatch locations can take several forms:

• Permanent backup sites with touch-screen consoles or rugged non-PC based hardware
• Portable dispatch consoles, effectively a laptop that can be taken to any temporary location
• Full dispatch capability built into incident control vehicles that can be deployed wherever needed
• Any combination of the above

Operators retain the same functionality regardless of where they're physically located, whether that's across town or across the country. With RoIP, distance stops being the limiting factor it once was.

IP Phone Connectivity

Adding SIP signalling to a network lets radio channels be accessed directly from phones. Supervisors and managers can speak to field personnel from a SIP-enabled phone, and many smartphones now support SIP apps, effectively turning a phone into a radio. That means supervisors aren't tied to a desk, or even to radio range, to stay in contact with their teams.

Managing Backup Systems

Sometimes multiple dispatch locations aren't enough on their own, particularly if the communications centre itself is compromised. RoIP allows organisations to build genuine redundancy into their central radio management system, running regular whole-of-system backups to a second system at a different location. If an outage occurs, remote operators can connect to the backup system almost seamlessly, with current settings already replicated across.

This works by providing multiple paths to repeater sites and replicating received audio across multiple dispatch locations, including the backup. For a national organisation, that backup location could genuinely be anywhere, network control for an Auckland centre could be backed up to a site in Christchurch, and accessed from there if needed.

Remote Configuration and Monitoring

Emergency situations often demand a system be reconfigured quickly to meet sudden, immediate demand. A dispatch system that can be remotely configured over IP lets system integrators and technicians access the server from anywhere with a web browser, rather than needing to be physically present.

Parts of a radio network can also be isolated so that increased traffic during an incident doesn't flood areas that aren't involved. In a fire response, for instance, radio resources can be reallocated to the frontline while traffic elsewhere is kept to what's actually relevant to that area.

Remote configuration also means a faster response overall, since integrators don't need to travel to the communications centre, whether that's simply a long drive away or the site is inaccessible due to safety concerns. System health can be monitored in real time throughout, so any strain under increased load shows up immediately.

Cross-Agency Communication

Coordination between organisations can genuinely make the difference in an emergency response, and it's not limited to emergency services. Utilities, transport operators, and local government all need to communicate with each other and with first responders during a major event.

The problem is that many of these organisations run on different systems entirely, different frequency bands (UHF, VHF, marine band), or different protocols (analogue, DMR, P25). Choosing the right IP connectivity gateway and network management system allows interoperability across all of these, letting organisations that need to collaborate actually do so. Combined with remote configuration, these cross-agency channels can be set up quickly from any location when an incident demands it.

Building RoIP Into Your Disaster Recovery Plan

A communications network that stays up during a disaster isn't an accident, it's the result of planning that accounts for the specific pressures New Zealand's geography and events create. Including RoIP as part of that infrastructure and disaster recovery plan gives an organisation the flexibility to meet increased demand reliably, whatever form the disaster takes.

The result is everyone staying connected, from personnel in the field, to dispatch operators, to supervisors and managers, to the other organisations you need to work alongside. Perhaps most importantly, RoIP gives an organisation the ability to adapt its communications network quickly to challenges that can't always be fully predicted in advance.

Mobile Systems Limited designs and supports Tait network and dispatch console solutions for New Zealand organisations that need their communications to hold up when it matters most. Talk to our team about building resilience into your network.