Airbus to supply VESTA radio solution to Florida’s Sarasota and Manatee counties

Airbus Defense and Space has been chosen to design, install and maintain a VESTA Radio solution for public safety communications across Florida’s Sarasota and Manatee counties.

Approved by both County Commissions with unanimous votes, the land mobile radio solution is expected to boost communication among public safety personnel such as police, fire, and emergency medical services, to better serve the nearly 750,000 people of the two counties.

Manatee County Administrator Ed Hunzeker said: "After a thorough evaluation process, procurement teams from both counties determined that Airbus DS Communication best met the technical requirements for this critical community project."

Airbus DS Communications CEO Bob Freinberg said: "This shared VESTA system is a model holding many benefits of public safety entities collaborating.

"Each county will save taxpayers’ money — while also implementing a better system — and delivering greater interoperability in region-wide emergencies."

Dubbed the Suncoast Regional Communications System, the new 800MHz VESTA Radio solution will cover 1,300 square miles and facilitates seamless communication between Sarasota’s 32 agencies and 4,800 radios and Manatee’s 35 agencies and 3,300 radios.

In particular, the P25 standards compliant radio network will provide total user interoperability for enhanced public safety communications and collaboration throughout the region, broadening the coverage around the University Parkway Corridor.

The radio leverages a distributed, IP-based architecture that offers protection against system failures, if a single location suffers an outage.

Claimed to be capable of supporting multiple frequency bands as well as simulcast and multicast modes of operation, the LMR solution can also enable continued communication and dispatch operations over the IP network, in the event of multiple system failures.