It's sad for the hobby but not unexpected they have been saying the words "secure digital radio" since the first press release years ago for the Public Safety Network (PSN). Unfortunately, Facebook groups and rouge streamers have assisted in implementing Encryption by publicly releasing information or streaming about what they have heard over the air. All emergency services being encrypted is now the going thing with Queensland and Tasmania in Australia doing this in the past few years, and Europe using Encrypted Tetra or Tetrapol for decades with agencies needing to talk to each other it would make sense for the logistics of the system for encryption to just be added across the board, even the local councils on the Queensland P25 system are encrypted which is a surprise.
The interesting bits about the system will be to see how it's implemented, how emergency services use the new features and talk group allocation and whether there will be coverage issues (as the old ESA low VHF band had good rural coverage) or some unencrypted talk groups although I doubt it. I think the rollout may be quicker than previously thought, site works have already begun and you will notice police officers particularly in Wellington wearing new Tait TP9800 multiband radios with the new TSM4 Tait speaker mics which indicates the prep is happening and the fact this time it being run by a multi-agency government lead and funded systems with its own board means it will be quicker and better coordinated the than the old P25 phase 1 system rollout out years ago.
Police tried to roll a nationwide P25 network back in 2008-2010 but were knocked back on funding by the government of the day as the Global financial crisis hit and only Auckland, Wellington and Canterbury were added to the secure system. There were plans for Fire and Ambulance (Wellington Free Ambulance and Auckland Fire Operational Support did join) to join nationwide with unencrypted talk groups but it is a different world now with urban and rural council fire services now being all merged into FENZ in 2017 and them doing lots of medical response these days and ambulance needing better radio coverage with security for R40 hospital transmissions its just easier for NGCC to encrypt everything on the PSN LMR system given the cyber security issues everyone is paranoid about now and its easy to add encryption now to new system builds.
Hopefully, someone can map the system out maybe here on RR just out of interest's sake even though the talk groups won't be listenable.
Does anyone know what frequency bands they choose to use I'm guessing it's a mix of ESB and ESC and that it will be a P25 Phase 2.
