If you want more, it'll cost you more to put up more sites." "No, we think it'll work, you just don't want to do what we ask. We're giving up on you."
Probably.
Not probably. Likely.
We have the exact same problem in Alberta. Harris 700MHz phase 1 trunk system with some sort of conventional P25 VHF system linked to the trunk system in the western portion of the province were 700MHz just won't with out dozens more sites, and in the north where there is extremely low population density.
System is spec'd for 95/95 mobile coverage on primary(1 and 2 digit numbered) and secondary(3 digit numbered) highways. They have also spec'd 95/95 portable on street coverage in 90? "urban" towns/cities. Currently the Government has spent close to C$400 million for 330-ish sites(largest P25 trunk system by site count and square kilometer covered in North America) just infrastructure for 95/95 Mobile coverage on primary and secondary highway coverage. Now a days everyone wants portable on hip coverage EVERYWHERE. I can not even imagine the cost to do that in Alberta. For size comparison Alberta is 661,848 km², the State of Florida is 170,305 km². We could put almost 4 states of Florida into Alberta. But we have 16 million less people than Florida in Alberta.
Problem is that they want EVERY first responder agency on the network. Between the cost of subscriber equipment, and the lack of portable coverage, rural volunteer fire departments are not interested because 95/95 mobile coverage just will not cut it for fire fighting. Most will have some sort of subscriber gear for 'interoperability' though.
There are already coverage complaints, due to some moron at our provincial EMS provider deciding that they were only going to purchase portables. Then they try and blame the system because the portables are not working everywhere. Our EMS provider does LOTS of inter-hospital transfers, from the rural areas to the 6 major metro areas.
Harris has built the system to spec, and coverage holes are not their fault, but the governments fault for taking the 'Participation medal' system, instead of the 'gold medal' system.