12dbsinad
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- Joined
- Mar 15, 2010
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- 1,946
Here we go again. Plus they are trying to cram all the acoustics in a tiny form factor "phone" with no regard to ergonomics. Look at your old landline phone. A lot of R&D went into just the mechanical spacing of the handset mike and earpiece.
I dunno, go ahead, but.Can I use my generic Project 16 statement here?
Project 16 defined acquisition times and latency times...PTToLTE doesn't currently meet these.
and we also used to believe there is no way we'd ever have mobile data with broadband speeds, nor would people be tethered to their lives streaming from a single device with a 5" screen, but here we are.I cannot imagine that PTToLTE will ever be able to provide acceptable latency .
and we also used to believe there is no way we'd ever have mobile data with broadband speeds, nor would people be tethered to their lives streaming from a single device with a 5" screen, but here we are.
Attended a recent presentation on small cell deployment by the CTIA. The metric quoted was there are 10 million people but over 30 million wireless devices active in my state.
If you think MCPTT won't mature, and quickly, than you're still thinking Smartphones are toys and will be a passing fad. Survey says: XXXX. LTE/5G is the future and it's changing so many facets of our lives and so fast, it's hard to keep up with.
Never say never.
Eventually all public safety radios will have built in LTE capability. Harris already has this with the XL-200P (both Verizon and At&t) and I believe BK when their multi band is released. Motorola makes it seem like they have produced some breaking edge technology with their future APX Next radios.Motorola has this option called Smart Connect, which will leverage P25 radios onto LTE systems as back up. Primary coverage provided via P25. This is probably where FirstNet will end up on the voice side.
Eventually all public safety radios will have built in LTE capability. Harris already has this with the XL-200P (both Verizon and At&t) and I believe BK when their multi band is released. Motorola makes it seem like they have produced some breaking edge technology with their future APX Next radios.
With that said, nobody in their right mind is going to run into a burning building or walk the beat with a freakin glorified cell phone handset, ruggedized or not. I also put my money on LMR. These tech geeks who think LTE is going to trample over LMR for mission critical voice within 5-10 years probably also smoke their breakfast.
I've had a BeON core at my dispatch center, with working (through donor radios) LTE equipped XL-200p's back in 2017. Went to Vegas for IWCE and had flawless coverage. Got back to ATL, and my radios registered with our 7.14 (at the time) system without user intervention. This was over two years ago.Eventually all public safety radios will have built in LTE capability. Harris already has this with the XL-200P (both Verizon and At&t) and I believe BK when their multi band is released. Motorola makes it seem like they have produced some breaking edge technology with their future APX Next radios.
Likewise, the cost of putting multi-million dollar LMR with body worn coverage in urban areas with dense buildings and issuing $8000 subscribers is hard to sell when commercial carriers/WiFi is now ubiquitous and robust thanks to small cell deployments growing faster than trees. It's a tough sell to before a board of commissioners and beg for millions for high dollar capex expenditures to keep complex LMR systems viable in the next 10-20 years when commercial core can supplement for pennies on the dollar and do more like offer true in-building location, carry data, and has a low capex cost upfront with a "hands off" management approach that means less staff to pay benefits and retirements for.With that said, nobody in their right mind is going to run into a burning building or walk the beat with a freakin glorified cell phone handset, ruggedized or not. I also put my money on LMR. These tech geeks who think LTE is going to trample over LMR for mission critical voice within 5-10 years probably also smoke their breakfast.
Eventually all public safety radios will have built in LTE capability. Harris already has this with the XL-200P (both Verizon and At&t) and I believe BK when their multi band is released. Motorola makes it seem like they have produced some breaking edge technology with their future APX Next radios.
With that said, nobody in their right mind is going to run into a burning building or walk the beat with a freakin glorified cell phone handset, ruggedized or not. I also put my money on LMR. These tech geeks who think LTE is going to trample over LMR for mission critical voice within 5-10 years probably also smoke their breakfast.
I've had a BeON core at my dispatch center, with working (through donor radios) LTE equipped XL-200p's back in 2017. Went to Vegas for IWCE and had flawless coverage. Got back to ATL, and my radios registered with our 7.14 (at the time) system without user intervention. This was over two years ago.
Harris has this down pat.
Not everybody needs 8000 dollar radios. The majority of guys out in the field do not need a mutli band enabled APX8000. Number 1, you're buying the Motorola name along with the radio. The equivalent Harris radio can be bought for about 25% less all day long, and that isn't even with special pricing. But to put things in perspective, nothing on a firefighter is cheap. How many thousands is the airpack? Gear? TIC? Gas meter? Etc, etc.Likewise, the cost of putting multi-million dollar LMR with body worn coverage in urban areas with dense buildings and issuing $8000 subscribers is hard to sell when commercial carriers/WiFi is now ubiquitous and robust thanks to small cell deployments growing faster than trees. It's a tough sell to before a board of commissioners and beg for millions for high dollar capex expenditures to keep complex LMR systems viable in the next 10-20 years when commercial core can supplement for pennies on the dollar and do more like offer true in-building location, carry data, and has a low capex cost upfront with a "hands off" management approach that means less staff to pay benefits and retirements for.
Well, not really. If a BDA fails you at least can try simplex, or go to the nearest window to try to access the closest site. If you loose the fiber backhaul to or At&t didn't maintain the cell batteries (or they just go dead) or whatever the case may be, your Somin XP8 is a useless as tits on a bull. I suppose you could try to go to the nearest window as well and hope for the best. Also, if I ever told my customers that this Somin was their firefighting radio, they would literally laugh in my face and say "good one".As far as going into a burning building, any system and subscriber has to be built to perform and more importantly, users trained. It can cost into the hundreds of thousands to put a purpose built public safety grade BDA into a multi-story building, and yet the first fire that breaks out, that system can become compromised or offline completely, than what? With no coverage, an APX8000 is just as useless as a Sonim XP8 if the user doesn't have coverage or is not trained and proficient in how to use their equipment.
You're right, nothing is perfect. There are always going to be "what if's".Those who say "simplex" is the answer never worked in an urban jungle. A modern concrete jungle of a building, a 4 watt UHF portable is only good for 3-4 floors at best. There is no "one size fits all" solution but those agencies who deploy tactical communications teams to incidents as part of their dispatch protocol are the ones who can use the resources at hand to make something work for the situation at hand. People with viable skill sets are more valuable than any high dollar equipment, network or toys.
The same vulnerability? No, not even close. Of course, this all depends on how the system is constructed. We recently completed a new LSM system for a small city. Literally 1/4 of the cost for the project went into backup systems. They could essentially loose the entire primary core, the 8 sites, and STILL have decent city wide communications (no in building coverage guaranteed) for police, fire and EMS. This of course comes with a cost. I would say this scenario is rare but it is what the officials wanted after dealing with a terrible radio system for many years. Try having that much redundancy with a commercial carrier. Try getting the emergency support from a commercial carrier. You won't.The same venerability exists in LMR infrastructure in LTE/commercial carrier.
I've said it many many times here that some things are for sure a rip off. The first is P25. Complete rip off. I agree, some things are WAY overpriced. But, those overpriced things are at the complete control of the governing body. They can get quotes, prices, and competition. You can choose whatever type of system you want, the equipment you want, and the sites you want. You will NOT be having this advantage with FirstNet. You will also will not have the service that should be expected, you're at the mercy of a nation wide for profit (a majority of their money comes from civilian phones) and you're just a "customer".You probably know of many public safety systems from analog conventional to LSM trunked networks that were all built to a price point: and that is my point- the cost of LMR is way over valued. The proof is in the fact that vendors sell similar hardware to businesses for a few hundred bucks a pop versus thousands. Same with repeater/base radios. A couple grand versus 30 grand for a GTR. There is NO WAY there is 10 times the amount of hardware under the hood (and you and I know both of them well).
Maybe that's what happens in your neck of the woods, but not around here.A core is comprised of what: enterprise grade server/network hardware from the same place your back office gets their hardware: the vendor just marks it up a few hundred percent and puts their custom O/S on it.
So far there is no writing on the wall IMHO. You've got a commercial carrier that sees green pushed by government intervention. They need to do much better if they are aiming for prime time. There are many articles out there pointing out LTE and LMR and the future. NON of them mention a storming take over, as a matter of fact, they predict LMR isn't going anywhere anytime soon. There is a REASON for this prediction.It's going to become more difficult to justify the cost versus the return when commercial carriers are stepping up their game. They see the money on the table. Once the product is ready for prime time, it will be a difficult sell to pitch multi-million dollar hardware and software based on yesterday's technology to folks who deal only in numbers.
The ideology of going to a subscription based service for LMR is taking shape, at least at the biggest player's ball park. The writing is on the wall. Whether or not we all want to read it and take note is another story...