Monday, April 26, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

PBS station using high-tech to help first responders

Television technology is helping Las Vegas public safety personnel get up-to-the minute information that can help them respond to emergencies.

The new technology, which debuted last week at the National Association of Broadcasters' convention at the Las Vegas Convention Center, allows Public Broadcast Service affiliate KLVX-TV, Channel 10, use a portion of its digital television signal to beam information such as building blueprints or video and audio files to first responders' computers or mobile data terminals.

This information beaming, known as datacasting, uses some of the station's excess high-definition broadcasting bandwidth to move complex files of digital materials to a computing device or even multiple devices. Because datacasting uses only excess parts of the spectrum, it doesn't interfere with the station's normal HDTV broadcasts.

The information can be received using a traditional television antenna that is connected to a special receiver, which plugs into a computer or mobile data device such as a Palm Pilot. Through the over-the-air signal, emergency workers can receive files just as they would with an Internet connection.

KLVX partnered with Chantilly, Va.-based SpectraRep for the technology. The public television station also teamed up with Archaio, a local digital document management company.

The information can be beamed to police, fire, rescue, hospitals or other first responders. The system can also transmit weather alerts, Emergency Alert System signals and Amber Alerts.

"We now have the ability to deliver this kind of information in a new type of wireless format," KLVX general manager Tom Axtell said. "We were interested in this because we have a social responsibility to be innovative, and now we're trying to innovate datacasting."

SpectraRep officials said most of the country's top public television stations have been in the forefront in using this type of communications technology, which has seen a greater need and benefit since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"This is a long-term investment on behalf of most public television stations who have spent millions of dollars to convert their broadcast signals from analog to digital. This is also an opportunity for them to recoup a part of their investment," said Mark O'Brien, SpectraRep's executive vice president and chief technologist.

Although KLVX is just rolling out the product and arranging demonstrations with the valley's public safety agencies, Axtell said it is too early to say what kind of revenue generator this will be for the station.

"There will be revenue coming into the station as a result of this, but we're unsure what that will be because it is new," Axtell said. "But there's an effort to build this business."