From Fragmented BDAs to a Single Pane-of-Glass Public-Safety Radio Dashboard

1. Company & SCADA Project Overview

Background

The Office of Unified Communications (OUC) manages Washington, DC’s 700/800 MHz public-safety radio network. To maintain in-building coverage for first responders, more than 230 Bi-Directional Amplifiers (BDAs) rebroadcast the city-wide signal inside hospitals, schools, and government facilities.

Project Motivation

OUC technicians had to juggle a patchwork of vendor portals, unsecured remote logins, and manual site visits just to verify BDA status or silence a malfunctioning unit. Rising interference risks and new cybersecurity mandates drove OUC to seek a single SCADA-grade monitoring platform that could:

• Display live health for every BDA in one place

• Trigger alarms and shut down problem units remotely

• Meet FedRAMP and District IT security requirements

• Scale to hundreds of additional BDAs without per-tag licensing fees

Morcom International, Inc. of Ashburn, Virginia was awarded the contract and selected Avadine to design and deliver the solution using the Ignition platform from Inductive Automation.

2. Problem Definition

Key Challenges

• Fragmented Visibility – Five BDA manufacturers, each with different GUIs and alarm sets

• Slow Incident Response – Manual trips to buildings; alarms often detected hours late

• Security Gaps – Some legacy BDAs exposed on the public Internet, violating policy

• Budget Constraints – Needed fleet-wide monitoring without ballooning license costs

Interim Work-Arounds

Technicians kept spreadsheets, used unsecured remote-desktop tools, and relied on preventive site visits—tactics that increased travel time and failed to guarantee rapid shutdown of RF-noisy BDAs.

3. Decision-Making & Solution Selection

Selection Criteria

Process

OUC and Morcom International compared commercial NMS packages, but only Ignition paired unlimited licensing with a built-in map component. Avadine demonstrated a pilot with Kymera’s single SNMP driver and a hardware VPN lock within four weeks, winning full-project approval.

4. Implementation Process

Execution Strategy

1. Audit & Design – Catalogued all 230 BDAs, classifying “Standard” vs. “Legacy.”

2. Pilot (20 sites) – Validated alarms, VPN tunnels, and remote shutdown.

3. Phased Rollouts – Added ~50 BDAs every eight weeks; no radio downtime.

4. Training & Handover – Role-based portal sessions and run-books for NOC staff

Challenges & Solutions

5. Technical Architecture & Components

6. Results & Impact (First 6 Months)

7. Customer & Stakeholder Feedback

“The Ignition dashboard gives us a city-wide heartbeat for every BDA. If interference pops up, we can kill the transmitter in seconds.” — Radio Systems Supervisor, OUC

Operations staff highlight the GIS view and single-click shutdown as “night-and-day” improvements over the prior toolset.

8. Future Prospects

• Predictive Analytics – Trend VSWR and amplifier temperature to flag degradation early.

• Mobile Read-Only Dashboards – Give field inspectors instant site health on tablets.

• Expansion – Integrate 150+ new BDAs planned for upcoming building projects.

9. Lessons Learned & Recommendations

• Standardize Early – Classifying BDAs as Standard vs. Legacy focused integration effort.

• Hardware VPNs Simplify Security – Lock units cut months off firewall coordination.

• Exploit Native GIS – Ignition’s built-in map removed the need for third-party mapping stacks.

10. Operational & Business Metrics Impact

• 90 % reduction in emergency site visits saves fuel, labor, and vehicle wear.

• Sub-minute alarms prevent radio interference that could jeopardize first-responder safety.

• Unlimited licensing keeps annual operating cost flat as the BDA fleet grows.

Conclusion

By combining Ignition’s open architecture, Kymera’s SNMP driver, and a secure VPN mesh, Avadine delivered a single-pane-of-glass view for every in-building BDA. The project has transformed OUC’s ability to maintain mission-critical radio coverage while meeting strict security and budget requirements—proof that the right SCADA platform turns “We can’t” into “Yes, we can.”