Joshua Adams
Houston Public Media
Joshua Adams is a media organization executive specializing in large-scale technical, facilities, data and financial integration initiatives. He is currently the Executive Director of Operations at Houston Public Media. (KUHT TV-8 and KUHF News 88.7) Houston Public Media has a 18-million dollar budget, 80+ staff and donor base of 50-thousand. An Emmy Award-winning producer, Adams has had leadership positions at KHOU 11 (Belo/CBS) and WNCN (NBC). With KHOU, he guided large-revenue station productions including Houston Texans special broadcasts, Thanksgiving Day parade broadcasts, early news and served as show-runner for Great Day Houston, a live, daily, morning magazine show. With NBC he produced and led News O&O coverage including coordinated efforts for US Open Golf in Pinehurst NC, Hurricane Coverage, and the Iraq War. He was part of a team that launched the BETA sites for NBC O&O hubbed master control and hubbed graphic arts departments.Adams spent time in local government in Durham, NC overseeing 100+ agency services contracts for the local Department of Mental Health. He also served as Director of Advertising and Communications for a federal congressional campaign, specializing in strategic message and direct mail.Josh Adams is Vice-President of the Houston Area Local Communications Committee charged with oversight and activation of EAS alerts in southeast Texas. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Houston Regional Amber Plan, the Amber Alert activator for southeast Texas.
Public Safety Partner Houston Public Media has been a leader among all broadcasters, public and commercial, in building bridges with public safety partners to protect and serve the citizens of their community. The University... [ view full abstract ]
Public Safety Partner
Houston Public Media has been a leader among all broadcasters, public and commercial, in building bridges with public safety partners to protect and serve the citizens of their community. The University of Houston’s Office of Emergency Management is located in Houston Public Media’s building with 24-hour monitoring capability. KUHF is the LP1 station for the region, notifying other radio outlets regarding severe weather and other emergency alerts. Houston Public Media was nationally recognized for its public safety efforts and partnerships at the Public Media Summit with the 2017 Pillar of Public Service Award. The award celebrates our commitment to enhancing emergency communications for first responders.
Hurricane Harvey
The Houston Police Department and Houston Fire Department used Houston Public Media’s datacasting technology in direct response to the unprecedented Hurricane Harvey storm flooding. Police and Fire teams were able to stream live video of flood conditions and monitor real-time impact broadcast directly to vehicles. This included vantage points streamed directly to HPM units from fixed cameras around the city, helicopter footage over the flood waters, and live feed from an HFD drone flying over a refinery fire. Fire crews were able to determine in real time where the safest, most effective point of attack for the fire was. Mobile phone feeds were also incorporated into the Emergency Operations Center were OEM planners, FEMA operators and city leaders could monitor. This technology, made available through public media, allowed primary responders to communicate with each other, assess ground conditions and make informed response decisions. Public media’s datacasting technology enables secured communications to travel through public television’s airwaves to targeted public safety recipients. Even if the power grid goes down, datacasting delivers.
Datacasting Overview
KUHT has dedicated a portion of their over-the-air broadcast signal to provide datacasting technology services to public safety efforts. Datacasting is a technology that allows broadcast television to act as a highway for encrypted targetable computer data to law enforcement.
Today, public safety relies on commercial cellular carriers to enhance their LMR voice networks and deliver video, files and other data. In the future, FirstNet will improve public safety data delivery, but will still be subject to the congestion issues experienced today when too many users require access to the same content. KUHT’s datacasting work provides a unique private multicast pathway today, and will enhance FirstNet’s capabilities in the future. Datacasting is being used in several capacities in Houston. This report highlights a few of the higher profile events where it has proven to be a valuable tool for law enforcement.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate conducted an exercise to evaluate how datacasting over public television might enhance public safety information sharing. Participants included Houston Police Department (HPD), Houston Fire Department (HFD), Harris County Sherriff’s Office, University of Houston, Texas Medical Center and NRG Stadium, the site of this year’s Super Bowl. A report written by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory for details on this event is available.
During this exercise multiple agencies, some for the first time, were able to share live video, files and alerts. The scenario was following a person of interest as he walked and traveled around Houston. Cameras followed him as he moved between jurisdictions and even onto private property like the Texas Medical Center and NRG stadium. Security at each location was notified and able to see what was happening in real-time.
GOP Presidential National Debate held at the University of Houston
KUHT played an important role in the national GOP Presidential debate held on the University of Houston campus. HPD wanted access to University cameras while campus security wanted to monitor traffic and see HPD helicopter video. Since IT security on both sides limited direct access to their respective networks, datacasting was used to share video between organizations. Security was maintained and each side was able to transmit their content to the other, retaining full control of their respective content and without directly connecting their networks. Datacasting solved the problem of ad-hoc information sharing without investing in temporary infrastructure or giving up control.
Final Four
The Final Four basketball tournament was held in Houston in April 2016 and provided another high- profile large crowd event at NRG Stadium. Datacasting was used again to share video and other data, both within and among multiple agencies. HFD used the datacasting phone app to push live video from locations that do not have permanent cameras back to the emergency operations center where it was shared. While the phone app does require LTE cellular coverage to work, the heavy lifting of distributing that video out to multiple recipients is handled by the broadcast signal. This event demonstrated how datacasting can integrate with other networks to enhance capabilities and offload bandwidth hogging content, getting everyone what they need while not congesting existing networks.
Historical Flooding
Prior to Hurricane Harvey, shortly after the Final Four tournament, Houston experienced devastating flooding in April 2016. An HPD helicopter was used by HFD to survey the damage and look for people in need of assistance. As the helicopter did not have a camera, HFD’s Assistant Fire Chief used the datacasting phone app to push live video from the air to the datacasting dashboard. It was then delivered to the Mayor’s Office and other locations that would not have otherwise had access to that important live video feed.
Fire Accreditation
HFD is certified annually and the accreditation team is eager to see the geography that HFD operates in. In the past, HFD accomplished this through driving around town, a process that takes several days. A helicopter tour was suggested but the full team would not fit in one aircraft. After the successful use of datacasting during the flooding event, HFD repeated the use of the phone app with datacasting to show the accreditation team various parts of the city. This saved considerable time and money compared to the alternatives. The team saw what they needed to see and HFD was accredited.
Chevron Houston Marathon
The Houston Marathon provided another large crowd event in downtown Houston near Discovery Green where commercial cellular was congested. Datacasting was used again to deliver content over the top of those networks, freeing up cellular spectrum for other uses. The new FirstNet band 14 spectrum was also used extensively during the marathon, both to share content between band 14 users and to ingest content into the datacasting system for re- broadcast. Datacasting enhanced band 14 enabling more information to be shared with more users.
Super Bowl LI
As a special national security event, the Super Bowl requires the latest technology. The KUHT datacasting system was enhanced and expanded to bring in content from additional police operations centers and more vehicles were installed with datacasting receivers. Datacasting was used continuously during the event and for several days leading up to it.
Conclusion
Today, KUHT is providing spectrum to public safety personnel on a routine basis, including providing support to 50 City of Houston vehicles. KUHT remains committed to providing resources to public safety personnel and stakeholders to better educate and inform the citizens of Greater Houston.
Possible Topics: Products & Technology , Possible Topics: Public Safety , Possible Topics: Trends & Future Tech
