The mandate for 700 MHz public safety narrowband to 6.25 was eliminated by the FCC on October 17,2014, So it would be up to Marcs to upgrade if and when they chose to. Also Marcs now has a mix of 700/800 of which the 800 was never on the narrowband mandate to begin with.
Owen, thanks for the Oct. 17, 2014 date. The FCC has known for quite a while that 6.25 bandwidth won't work. Most of the documents I've seen have changed the wording to 6.25 equivalency. What I haven't seen is a specific required timeline with respect to requiring implementation of (6.25 equivalency) TDMA/Phase II.
With respect to MARCS, I have seen recent DAS 2016 documents that refer to 6.25 equivalency (a.k.a.) TDMA/Phase II. The other side of the coin has to do with MARCS and Motorola long term support contracts. The support contracts do spell out End Of Life dates for specific hardware. MARCS is currently in an upgrade/warrantee cycle that will take it out to 2018 or 2019. Included in those Motorola upgrades (I didn't say MARCS requested it) is TDMA functionality.
So all Motorola P25 customers MARCS included, will be getting TDMA as part of their support warrantee contracts. FYI, MARCS currently has Moto support contracts that run to the mid 2020's with options to the mid 2030's.
Since the functionality is
baked in if you will. They might as well use it. Which brings me back to my original post. Don't know when it's coming, but it's coming.