New York Terminates M/A-COMM Contract
Chalk up another defeat for interoperable communications networks.
The New York state Office for Technology (OFT) announced Thursday it
has terminated its contract with M/A-COM, the vendor building the
statewide wireless public safety network.
The OFT gave M/A-COM notice for payment of a $50 million standby
letter of credit, as agreed upon in the contract. Since the contract
was awarded in April 2004, the state said it has spent $54 million in
operating expenses for the project.
The OFT said M/A-COM failed to cure 15 of 19 deficiencies that were
outlined in an Aug. 29, 2008, default letter. Problems outlined in
the default notice included high failure rates for mobile radios and
other portable devices; multiple site outages that rendered the
network unavailable for 43 hours during the July test period; and
glitches with the network’s uninterrupted roaming feature that in
some cases prevented the use of radios for emergency communications.