Gathering clouds

Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By James Careless

Harlin McEwen, chairman of the Public Safety Spectrum Trust (PSST), a nonprofit organization consisting of FCC-selected public-safety organizations that hopes to serve as the national licensee for the network, said that the shape and form of the network will depend largely on who buys the spectrum and how they plan to roll out their national commercial service.

But he added that he doesn't see traditional land mobile radio systems going away for a long time. “This is not intended to replace them for the next 10 years,” McEwen said.

M/A-COM's Facella agreed. “I don't see wireless data broadband as a replacement for LMR, because LMR networks are built for narrowband voice or lower data speeds and with special features needed by public safety,” he said. “They are two different types of applications, even though voice can be packaged as voice over IP on broadband.”

According to Seybold, current carrier-based technology isn't a threat to LMR because it is designed to work as a cell-based system.

“Commercial technologies do not support simplex and tactical channels the way LMR systems do,” Seybold said. “Public-safety and municipal users need this functionality — that's why LMR can't just be replaced by commercially delivered wireless broadband.”

Commercial technologies also are not designed to support trunking, a must-have for many public-safety agencies.

“Today's first responders count on trunking not just for effective spectrum management, but to organize their users into various talk groups,” Facella said. “You're not going to convince public-safety agencies that they should drop all this functionality just for the sake of moving their voice traffic onto broadband wireless.”

And even if most equipment procurement is executed at a national or regional level, that doesn't mean LMR dealers are in trouble, said Myron Polulak, president of New England Communications Systems. At the least, Polulak sees dealers serving in a subcontractor role, because they are expert in terms of a region's topography and the needs of its local agencies.

“Dealers also could become channel partners for the distribution of the devices,” he said. “Or they could get involved in service and repair, however they can latch onto it.”

The consensus then is that the next-generation, IP-based network planned for first responders won't put traditional LMR vendors dealers at risk — at least not for the short term. However, there is no theoretical reason that would prevent commercial carriers from organizing VoIP traffic into talk groups as needed. All that would be required is the right metadata to be attached to each specific VoIP data stream to tell the network server where to route it and who gets to listen. In the same vein, the functionality provided by LMR trunking could be replicated by a clever telecom programmer. It's just a matter of managing the signal traffic.

This is why some believe that while LMR is not at risk right now, it could find itself being supplanted by broadband wireless in the distant future — but with certain caveats. “That certainly won't happen for a long time,” McEwen said. “And when it does, there will still be a need for portable, medium- and high-powered transceivers.”

In the meantime, forward-looking dealers should consider offering commercial products in order to build contacts and expertise that later could be leveraged in the public-safety broadband space.

“This represents a great opportunity for LMR dealers to add another revenue line, by offering the specialized public-safety devices that will be used on this network,” Facella said. “There's also an opportunity for them to study how the mom-and-pop shops sell cellular products and accessories and adopt what makes sense to the public-safety industry.”

Seybold agreed: “LMR can be part of this new future if it wants to be. The key is making sure that they're included in the distribution channel, so that public-safety agencies will continue to come to them for sales and service.”

According to McEwen, the transition described by Facella and Seybold has precedent. “Broadband wireless is going to change the whole picture of public-safety communications; that's for sure,” he said. “What remains to be seen is how LMR dealers anticipate, prepare for, and then capitalize on these changes. After all, there was a time when digital radio seemed astoundingly daunting to analog LMR dealers, and yet now they're selling it.”