I just read in an article "Most experts in the industry expect the PMR market to become completely digital by 2020 because analog has seemed to reach its limit." So, eventually will radio scanning be impossible? Or will scanners be able to follow radio systems into the future.
Is this new LTE scan able? And will the audio will be p25 or the audio will be on LTE too?
My thoughts here. P25, seems to be the new standard. Most are using Phase 1, today, and will move to Phase 2 at some point. Alot are encrypting, so that's not scannable. LTE, which is a data only network, and the standard calls for all user plane traffic to be encrypted. If they move voice to LTE, which is real possible, it will be IP Voice, like any other VOIP application, and will be encrypted. Not sure when that would make it to the marketplace, as that's an expensive upgrade. My thought is LTE will be used for data, like MTD's and such.
Since there are plenty of scanners out there, capable of P25, Ph1 and Ph2, that will be around for some time, as theres been alot of money invested in those networks already. There may be more movement to encryption, however most are leaving the main dispatch talkgroups open, and only using encryption on talk around and TAC groups. My local, just move all Fire TAC to encryption. Not sure what that's all about.
