It works surprisingly well. We often get a one mile (reliable) radius coverage car to car in a suburban environment. We get a bit less in rural areas.
I woud describe it as 1 1/2 to 2 times what you can expect with FRS.
It exceeded my expectations. I would think that the higher power of the XRS units would push that out even more.
Maybe more range the FRS 500mw, but not more than the 5 watt gmrs handhelds. My icoms will do 2 1/2 miles radio to radio, on flat terrain, with homes, buildings, and trees in between. My bubble pack midland 5 watt radios will do a bit less than two miles from the same two points. Yes, you are supposed to be licensed to use them, but very few people / companies that use them here care much about that, and neither does the FCC so it seems. So if some church managing parking during services or a garbage company managing their trucks in their main yard (two local examples) can buy radios for 10-20 dollars each, they will not spend all the extra money to buy these things.
Secure comms for kids? Why? The voice scrambling on bubble pack radios should suffice.
900 mhz radios will usually not work as well inside of a structure communicating to another radio somewhere else as a 460 mhz radio will. Locally, the Buckeye PD uses a 900 mhz system and it it notorious for working poorly inside of buildings, but fine outside. Firefighters all over the country have found that the new systems in the 860 mhz range do not work as well from inside of a structure as their old vhf or uhf radios did. This has already dawned on the city of Phoenix. Our local cops grouse about not having any reception in certain buildings where there old radios worked fine, and this is with a mega-bucks simulcast system in place. Higher frequencies just don't work as well for some things.
I'll bet a MURS radio could outperform them as well for that matter.
One thing these radios might create though if they become popular, is a hassle for the feds who monitor comms for security reasons. They tend to be a bit suspicious about secured comms that are not from LE. Yes they can still monitor these things, but it's just another hassle to have to have specialized equipment in use to do so all over the place if they become widespread spending time listening in on these things.
Oh, and just to take a slap at nextel, they are the worst service I have ever had the displeasure to be forced to use in the valley. Verizon is top dog in this part of the world.
