New York State Emergency Radio Network Fails Tests

A $2 billion effort to build a radio network that would connect emergency personnel across New York State has repeatedly performed so poorly in tests that the state should consider dropping the current contractor, the state comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli, said on Thursday with the release of an audit his office conducted.

M/A-COM, the subsidiary of Tyco Electronics that the state hired in 2005 to build the network, must fix the problems or face losing its contract without receiving any money, Mr. DiNapoli said. The state has committed to making that call by the end of next week, he said.

“New York is not much closer to a statewide network today than it was when this whole process started,” Mr. DiNapoli said in a statement. “After three rounds of failed testing, it is apparent that this system is not ready to move forward.”

Early planning on the project, the Statewide Wireless Network, began more than a decade ago within the Division of State Police, but the inability of first responders to communicate with one another during the World Trade Center attack on Sept. 11, 2001, intensified interest.

Thousands of police, fire and medical workers cannot use the state’s current system, and large areas of the state are unreachable.

Tests last September on the project’s first phase of installation found that words could not be understood and that communications between relay towers were too often lost. Those problems recurred during retests in April and July, the audit said.

The State Office for Technology, which is overseeing the project, has not yet released the results of the July test. A spokesman for the office said it welcomed the audit findings.

“M/A-COM has an opportunity to remediate existing issues, and we are hopeful they will be able to make the appropriate fixes so we can move forward with the project,” said the spokesman, Rob Roddy. “The state will make a decision whether to continue with the project in its current format in the weeks ahead.”

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