P25 Upgrade Question's

[jason51]

There are alot of agencies in the DFW looking to, or already have upgraded to P25 digital. The agency that i am with have gone round and round about what to do, and have fineally decided to go P25 Conventional with linked repeaters.
My question is, once these agencies upgrade to P25 phase 1, will they have to later upgrade to Phase 2, and if so, when?
The radio shops are telling everybody that they have to go digital by 2015, is this true? I can not find that rule, if it does exist. can someone point me in the direction to find these rules?
Thanks

[al95]

I thought it was by the year 2013 they had to go narrowband from 12.5 to 6.25 here is an website link
Is Your Part 90 UHF or VHF Radio or SCADA System Narrowband Ready?

[fwradio]

12.5 kHz operation by Jan 1, 2013. P25 Phase 1 meets that requirement. At this time there is no requirement for 6.25 kHz operation (Phase 2 would meet that). I would recommend that your agency not look at just one vendor, or just one brand. There is one major brand out there that is telling everyone that they HAVE to go digital. That is only partially true. To operate on the the Texas Interoperability channels using the MOU and State of Texas license, you must be P25 on those channels after Jan 1, 2015. You don't have to be P25 on your own channels, just operate on at least 12.5 khz channel efficiency.

[motorola_otaku]

At this time Phase II is only applicable to trunking. Phase I for conventional hasn't been finalized yet.

While the cost difference between vendors for P25 subscriber equipment (i.e. mobiles and portables) can be significant, the cost of infrastructure equipment (i.e. repeaters) is fairly uniformly high, unfortunately. The best deal I have seen so far came from Midland, but even then you're still looking at over $10,000 per unit.

[jason51]

Thanks, i guess you don't really have a choice but to go P25 if you are operating a system like Ft Worth. Motorola quit making analog parts and if forcing the change. I wonder why FW didn't look at other vendors? The county I live in decided to go EF Johnson P25 with several sites after telling Motorola to take a hike because they were pushing trunking and refused to sell anything else to them.
My department has purchased Turbo radios, and so far, I have been impressed with them.
I was aware of the narrow banding, but couldn't find any thing on the P25 rule. I figured they were telling agencies that so that they would switch.

[W2NJS]

What you were told is called misrepresentation. In professional bid sales it should be enough to get the company who does it kicked off the bidders' list permanently. Unfortunately the current world of public radio systems sales is rife with this kind of behavior. You did well to be skeptical about what you were told.