Couple of observations -
Yes, PMC is big into LMR and has been for decades. I think they're a good choice to be the prime, especially in a network which may be beta'ed for LMR emulation.
Bergen County is in that bad spot between the rock and hard place. It just spent big money on regionalizing its communications, something that defied home rule in the 70 towns through the growth years. Since the economy changed, many towns have had to consider things like giving up dispatching. The civilian positions created by the establishment of E9-1-1 in the mid-90s was never firmly entrenched in the individual towns and (to me, at least) seemed like an easy first-line concession, along with (and I am surprised at this one, because when I moved they were politically strong) the volunteer ambulance corps. No town would give up their DPW or police department unless it faced dire fiscal straits. Okay, that said, the network Bergen put in is good (comparing it against the "County Alert" system Henry Bros. put in back in the 70s, and the spotty wide area coverage of little municipal systems that are intended to cover a square mile). Except the frequencies used have been called home by Congress. There aren't enough 700 MHz channels to do a one-for-one swap, considering the municipalities who maintain their own systems on T-Band, and the big neighbors who traditionally glom up resources. This might be a voice option.
So, the gobbledygook about LTE - in LTE, voice *IS* data. Even in P25, Mototrbo, NXDN, D-STAR, Fusion, or some other digital protocol, voice IS data. When you build an LTE network and say it's for data transport, nothing says that data has to be mobile data terminals or sending JPEGs of offenders. Sure, it CAN be, but that's a very limiting factor. IF voice is vocoded to the P25 AMBE protocol, it can directly plug into a trunked system as a transition and have no distortion in converting voice. The audio from the LTE device and the audio from the hand-held radio are virtually the same. The big question is network latency, and how LTE devices work within the system in one-to-many. The other big question is one-to-many-off-network. Maybe here is where retaining some "narrowband" channels for last-line backup and simplex ops might be a thought. But the manufacturers are tooling up for this, and
it's already beyond proof of concept.
Start thinking 5G at this point. 5G involves a lot of "M2M" or machine-to-machine communication. The background chatter will consume bandwidth, but an incident commander might be able to see a firefighter's remaining air, heart rate, EKG, and relative position within a structure. Some people think that this also means streaming helmet cam video (like the Colonial Marines had in the Aliens movie). That eats bandwidth. All these things place demands on processors, and they can mostly handle it, assuming the apps run are not bloatware. So, when the IC calls for a building evacuation, or someone inside calls a MAYDAY, will the device be immediately available and immediately responsive?
Another user concern about VoLTE, the C-level suit folks wave a smartphone around and say it's public safety's upcoming communications solution. That's nice, but they've never been in a fire or a smoke condition. That dainty, elegant sliverphone with the fancy retina-optimized display is meaningless when you can't see your hand in front of your SCBA lens-piece, wearing PPE that can't effectively grip it, or it's well over 500 degrees. In fact, I wouldn't want to have a Lithium-based battery in that environment.
The "network" thing - I've been not invited back to conversations because I've challenged the value of someone who is out of position making decisions in a local operation. The "network" is a big selling point, but if the last mile is down, and that's where you are - and that's where the system is needed, it's tough to be you. We can't lose sight of a simple, immediate network-agnostic recovery (it doesn't care if a network is there or not), and we can't lose sight of the situational awareness that only "being there" brings. Just my opinion.
The "death of scanning..." Not necessarily. If this comes to fruition as a voice transmission mode, scanning can evolve into listening to traffic that is deliberately streamed. Why couldn't an agency who values public interaction do so on a controlled basis? There are side benefits to them, as well.
At the end of the day, we're seeing evolution and what's sure to be growing pains. Cutting edge, for sure.