In 1997 and 1998, the City of Allen partnered with the cities of Plano and Frisco to create a joint public safety radio system. In 2007, the cities were notified that Motorola would be phasing out technical support, service and parts for the original radio system.
In 2008, the City of Frisco notified the cities of Plano and Allen that it would be opting out of the shared radio system prior to it being upgraded. The cities of Plano and Allen worked with a consultant to develop a public safety radio system replacement plan. Additionally, the City of Allen put forth a bond package that was approved by the voters to fund the necessary upgrades to the public safety radio system.
Completed in June 2011, Motorola designed and implemented a new public safety radio system which included new radio consoles for the communications center, replacement or upgraded mobile/portable radios and new fire department alerting radios. The new system converted the analog system to a digital system.
In 2017, the NICE radio and phone recording system was upgraded to provide additional fault tolerance through implementation of redundant recording servers.
The annual service agreement provides the City with the software and hardware maintenance necessary to keep the public safety radio system operational.