Motorola still refuse to licence TETRA for the USA even though its one of the most popular trunking protocols with high profile national public safety networks all over Europe, Far East and as far as Australia. Apparently when they were picking the P25 standard, TETRA 'wasn't suitable' for the USA. The only reason why that I can think of is that allot of Public Safety systems in the USA seem to be very reliant on very few towers and TETRA is a infrastructure heavy system that hosts the radios leading to higher costs.
The benefit here is that TETRA users get lightweight and very cheap (around $350) radios whilst P25 users usually have to pay around $1200 for just one radio which is usually quite large, heavy and a more limited battery life.
Most handsets on this system do emit a talk permit tone when the PTT is pressed telling the user they have a channel to use and then on release of the PTT a very short high pitch beep to show the user has stopped transmitting.
Well, one of the big differences between P25 and Tetra would be the power output - since Tetra uses complex modulation, requiring a linear PA the terminals are heavily restricted as to the power output. P25 having a much simpler modulation (at least as far as the terminals are concerned) allows MUCH higher power outputs, and thus the area covered per tower is larger. This matters much more in the sparsely populated USA than in the much more urban European areas Tetra was intended to use.
Tetra does NOT scale well once you get out into rural areas with few towers, since the maximum power of even mobiles is limited.
An interesting question that nobody seems to be asking is this: since P25 has a much cruder and simpler RF system, why are those terminals not as cheap (or cheaper) as Tetra? And another interesting question that seems un-askable is why, given all of the perceived (and much touted) advantages of P25 in the USA is the P25 committee developing P25 phase 2, the TDMA version with all of the power and coverage issues of Tetra, but none of the established market and proven terminals?
Could it be that the manufacturers LIKE selling $5000 radios? And don't like the idea of selling $400 radios? Hmmmmm.....