Televate, a McLean, Va. consulting firm, hopes to leverage its experience designing and managing the procurement of a leading-edge broadband wireless network being built in Washington, D.C., to other cities nationwide.

Televate is a privately held, 30-person firm with an annual revenue of $5 million. Televate provides interoperable voice and data systems for police, fire and emergency management to government clients in Washington, D.C.; Wisconsin; Florida; Virginia; and New York.

Televate is helping Washington, D.C., build a 700MHz broadband wireless network for public safety agencies that is the first network of its kind. The National Capital Region’s Regional Wireless Broadband Network (RWBN) uses commercial equipment and industry standards to save money for the government agencies that will use it.

"We’re innovators in this project, and we hope to replicate this throughout the country," says Joe Ross, a partner and senior executive consultant with Televate.

Televate has been involved with Washington, D.C.’s public safety network strategy for years. Televate helped Washington, D.C., design its Wireless Accelerated Response Network, a pilot interoperable data network for city departments and nearby federal agencies. The pilot was so successful that it spawned the development of the RWBN, which Televate helped design and oversee.

"We manage the procurement process [for RWBN]," Ross explains. "We helped write the draft request for proposals. We helped evaluate bidders. The eventual awardee was Alcatel Lucent. Now we’re overseeing the deployment."

Televate is under contract to the District of Columbia through Telecommunications Development Corp., a small disadvantaged business.

"We have equipment installed in Washington, D.C.," Ross says of the RWBN. "We have three sites on the air that are providing service mostly in downtown parts of Washington, D.C., and we are working on solidifying the rest of the sites that will provide citywide service…We expect that the network acceptance of the first phase will be this summer."

In other jurisdictions, Televate helps government agencies re-band wireless spectrum for public safety applications. The firm sees great potential in the 700MHz band spectrum that Washington, D.C. is using in the RWBN.