It's a no-brainer that OPP will be fully encrypted, and from what I've heard EMS will be too. Beyond that it's anyones guess. And Fleetnet went into service around what.... 2002 or so? So it's definitely due for an upgrade. It'll also be interesting to see if it stays VHF... I've heard rumblings that it might be 700mhz.
I found this website pretty much when Fleetnet was already in the process of being rolled out in the fall of 2002. At the time I had very little interest in monitoring the OPP. I lived in midtown Toronto and pretty much my world was centered around that. No need to ever go to Hamilton, up north. Heck, I rarely travelled west of the 427 or east past Bayview Ave.
But I met a lady from Waterdown and we moved in together in 2003, she is now my wife. But whatever.. Im drifting.
I couldnt afford one of the new Uniden 250 scanners but I bought a 245 and hoped to monitor EMS activities. It was a slow and steady roll out. Hamilton CACC went on Fleetnet in the spring of 2005. London North EMS coverage went on Fleetnet for good in August 2006.
What Im getting at here is that it took a long time to get Fleetnet up and running to the capacity it was designed for. Over 5 years.
So we will still have stuff to monitor for years. I worked for a communications company for a few years in 2012-3. The VP was a inflated egomaniac and he said that he built Fleetnet when he worked with Bell Mobility back then. What he did say that I believed was that communication systems life span is like a cat. 15 years.
We are just past 15 years. Its gonna happen.
What I did take issue with Ford is that there were failures with the system. The way he said it that the failures were adding up and it was time for our front line civil servants to be able to do their jobs. I dont know if there was mention of the system restricting communications between the OPP, EMS, MNR, Etc but anyone who is a member here and has been for a good period of time knows that this is something that isnt a big deal. The ability for the agencies to communicate with each other is initially an issue but how many times have you heard an OPP unit call in to Orillia or London and ask the MTO road crews to salt a road, or plow. Thats just one example.
Fleetnet was commisioned before the Liberals got into power in 2003. Anyone savvy enough with an opened mind will know that Fleetnet was probably an initiative with the Harris Tories, heck, maybe it was the Rae NDP that got the ball rolling on this, I dont know,
16 Years of monitoring Fleetnet with radios and scanners and Trunk 88 since 2008. Failures? Have anyone here known Fleetnet to fail that often? Radios bonk out at time to time. There is maintenance but it has stood up to a good deal of whatever mother nature throws at it. Ice storm of 2013, tornadoes here and there. Cold snaps, snow events that dump 200 cm of snow just 50 km north of Toronto. It seems to me that Fleetnet was well designed and has served its purpose well.
If this really matters to anyone he or she will email or call Ford or your MPP. There job is to respond, they will respond. Ask him or her about the failures. Send them your logs on whatever software you use to monitor fleetnet.
The current terchnology is towards Encryption and Phase 2. But what do we know? Maybe in 2027 there will be some new standard of communications that we dont know anything about. Its silly then to speculate on something, its fun but honestly I doubt that 99% of us here could say that 'this will be this and that will be that" .
I hope to have 1 more scanner left in me. Im 50 years old, Im hoping that if I live long enough to see this new radio system in that there is something to listen to.
