How Long Since EDACS Support Was Discontinued?

[CanesFan95]

How long ago did Harris stop supporting EDACS systems? And exactly what does it mean to discontinue support? What is it that they no longer do? A number of agencies still use EDACS, so are they flying by the seat of their pants if something big goes wrong with the system and they can't get it fixed?

 

[GTR8000]

EDACS is End-of-Life (EOL) as of December 31, 2017. It means the manufacturer, Harris, will no longer provide support or parts for the systems. There may still be parts available from vendors who have historically sold and serviced these systems, but no new parts are being manufactured. Whatever inventory currently exists...that's it. Frankly, EDACS users who haven't started to plan for migration to P25 or something else by this point might be taking a risk, unless of course they happen to have a stockpile of parts to keep the system fully operational for years to come.

 

[CanesFan95]

Hillsborough County, FL is still mostly on EDACS and it's unclear when / if the County will go P25. Actually, the county also has a P25 system up and running, so both systems are in use.

https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=220
https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=7236.

But most users are still on EDACS. The P25 system has been up for about 2 years now, but the County just doesn't seem to be following through with the transition for some reason. For the scanning hobby, this is a good thing, because we can listen without dealing with the simulcast on P25.

Our County's Sheriff's Office operates the system and has a contract with a firm called Communications International, which everyone seems to refer to as "CI". Maybe CI has a lot of parts / radios in stock to keep things on EDACS for a while. Otherwise, it seems risky. It's confusing why our transition to P25 has taken this long.

 

[GTR8000]

Frankly, if an agency has access to spare hardware for an EDACS system and can keep it running smoothly for the foreseeable future, there's not much of a compelling reason to abandon the system. EDACS has been around forever and is a well matured technology, so nearly all of the software issues would've been worked out by this point. Keeping the hardware going is the bigger concern.

It's really no different than the fact that Motorola SmartZone 4.x systems are also EOL, but there are a ton of those still very much active.