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What Share Of The U.S. Non-Government Market Is MOTOTRBO?

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JASII

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As posted above, I am just wondering what digital formats are the most common in the US for users other than public safety. For example, say you are the average private hospital or campus security department and you are aware of the narrowbanding deadline. Do you upgrade radios, but stay analog? Do you go MOTO TRBO? Do you go NXDN? I suppose it would be difficult to find that out for certain, but from my experience, when those type of users upgrade, it seems like more are selecting MOTO TRBO than anything else. Anyway, what are you guys seeing and hearing?
 

JRayfield

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Numbers that I saw recently indicated that MOTOTRBO has the majority of the "digital market" at this point in time. With more companies coming out with DMR-based equipment, I would expect this trend to continue.

John Rayfield, Jr.


As posted above, I am just wondering what digital formats are the most common in the US for users other than public safety. For example, say you are the average private hospital or campus security department and you are aware of the narrowbanding deadline. Do you upgrade radios, but stay analog? Do you go MOTO TRBO? Do you go NXDN? I suppose it would be difficult to find that out for certain, but from my experience, when those type of users upgrade, it seems like more are selecting MOTO TRBO than anything else. Anyway, what are you guys seeing and hearing?
 

c5corvette

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Numbers that I saw recently indicated that MOTOTRBO has the majority of the "digital market" at this point in time. With more companies coming out with DMR-based equipment, I would expect this trend to continue.

John Rayfield, Jr.

Where can we see these numbers?
 

JRayfield

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I had started to work on something like that, but I haven't had time to finish the project. Once I'm caught up with some other projects, I'll try to get back on this one.

John Rayfield, Jr. CETma

Yes I would like to see them too, maybe a listing of FCC licenses with Mototrbo emissions, as compared to P-25,NXDN,and NB analog. Other wise the numbers are false, as Motorola likes to toot it's own horn.
 

Gadget

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MotoTRBO Emissions designator

If it helps, the Emissions Designators for new or upgraded/ converted systems to MotoTRBO are as follows:
7K60FXD
7K60FXE

I'm not really good at database queries but if anyone knows how to cross- reference that designator to a list maybe it will help. I'm actually nearing completion of a regional 7-site upgrade of our backup analog radio system to a MotoTRBO system with IP Site Connect & a area-wide channel system-wide. I have noticed that more MotoTRBO systems are popping up than NXDN systems (we own our towers & some have co-locate tower tenants) by comparison.
 

PACNWDude

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Oil industry MotoTrbo on west coast.

I have seen in the past two years many of the oil refineries and transport companies switch to MotoTrbo radios. This has been mostly due to a huge push from the local Motorola shops pushing digital MotoTrbo on companies to comply with narrow-band requirements. In many cases, the radios these locations had, could be programmed for narrow-band. But the sales people said they needed to go digital and buy new radios as well. I deal with nearly 100 companies in the oil and gas industry that have gone MotoTrbo due to drinking the salesman's "Kool-Aid".
Some other motivators have been: the XPR6550 handheld comes in a FM IS rated version, certified at the time of order with the correct battery, they are cheaper than repairing the radios they already had, and they have a longer battery life.
The company I work for is now in the process of switching to MotoTrbo as well to fall in line with the rest of the oil industry.
 

kayn1n32008

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I have seen in the past two years many of the oil refineries and transport companies switch to MotoTrbo radios. This has been mostly due to a huge push from the local Motorola shops pushing digital MotoTrbo on companies to comply with narrow-band requirements. In many cases, the radios these locations had, could be programmed for narrow-band. But the sales people said they needed to go digital and buy new radios as well. I deal with nearly 100 companies in the oil and gas industry that have gone MotoTrbo due to drinking the salesman's "Kool-Aid".

Some other motivators have been: the XPR6550 handheld comes in a FM IS rated version, certified at the time of order with the correct battery, they are cheaper than repairing the radios they already had, and they have a longer battery life.

The company I work for is now in the process of switching to MotoTrbo as well to fall in line with the rest of the oil industry.


I'm guessing it is not so much of drinking the salespersons "Kool-Aid" but rather the fact that by purchasing DMR, one instantly doubles their talk paths for the same price as buying an analogue repeater, plus the issues of reduced coverage caused by going to NFM vs FM. I think that most issues with DMR is the difficulty in hobbiest ability to monitor it. Hence the 'drink the Kool-Aid' comments.

When you are looking at replacing an aging, broken down fleet of radios, or replacing radios no longer produced, regardless if they can narrowband or not, it just makes sense to go to a technology like DMR. I am now using DMR with the client I now work for, and I must say I would rather grab the XPR-6550, and have uniform, clean, crisp audio, than the inconsistent, usually bad, signal strength dependant analogue radio.

Yes my XPR-6550 is IS rated (oilfield work) but so is the Vertex 92x series/Waris radios that are being phased out. Regardless of current status or not, this IS the direction communications are going. I would rather be on the leading edge than the trailing edge.


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kayn1n32008

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As posted above, I am just wondering what digital formats are the most common in the US for users other than public safety. For example, say you are the average private hospital or campus security department and you are aware of the narrowbanding deadline. Do you upgrade radios, but stay analog? Do you go MOTO TRBO? Do you go NXDN? I suppose it would be difficult to find that out for certain, but from my experience, when those type of users upgrade, it seems like more are selecting MOTO TRBO than anything else. Anyway, what are you guys seeing and hearing?


Why Go NXDN when you can replace a single analogue talk path and end up with two talk paths by simply switching to DMR while still havering only a single RF channel? XPR repeaters are about the same price as an analogue repeater. Plus the added benefit of having a wide range of subscriber manufacturers. Going DMR. Makes sense to me.


And it is MotoTRBO not MOTO TRBO.




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PACNWDude

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Drink the "Kool-Aid"

In the cases I have been involved with, the people did "Drink the Kool-Aid" as they did not go digital in operation, only on hardware. They bought MotoTrbo XPR6550 radios to replace everything from PR1500's to XTS2500's. Then the new XPR6550's are used in analog only mode. So they did not gain anything besides a cheaper radio with longer battery life that looks cool.
One company then tried to go digital between two of their sites about 2 miles away from each other and contacted me for technical advice. I found out that one site had XPR6550's and the other had XTS2500's. I had to educate them on the different types of Motorola digital radios. (FDMA/TDMA and the DTR series that has cropped up as well.)
Going to MotoTrbo across the board will be a good change and standardize training and expectations, but not every site and company needed to do this.
 

PACNWDude

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What I grab.

Since every site I go to is still analog, but some VHF and other UHF, I grab my Harris Unity XG-100P Unity radio and press on.
It does make for some interesting looks when many people see being issued a radio as a privilege, see one that is obviously nicer than theirs. (Although a Unity radio is like dragging a boat anchor at times compared to a single band XPR6550.) It also seems like a waste only using in digital 80-90% of the time. Luckily, this is my personal one and it gets used in another life in digital mode as well.

One thing that I would like to know, is how much of the non-government market is using Thales or Harris radios? Probably not much.
 

rapidcharger

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I'm guessing it is not so much of drinking the salespersons "Kool-Aid" but rather the fact that by purchasing DMR, one instantly doubles their talk paths for the same price as buying an analogue repeater,

You can consider that money is saved from buying another repeater... (nothing may be wrong with the existing)... but when you add up the additional cost of more expensive radios (than analog), the cost of an additional repeater is not only a drop in the bucket, it's a smaller bottom line on the quote.

My guess is that rather than being koolaid, the salesman brought over mototrbo units for a demo and to the average business buyer, they don't know the difference between one walkie talkie and the next, and buying walki talkies is about as interesting to them as shopping for rubberbands and paper clips, that's what they buy. So you need a new repeater-thingamabob to work with the new walkie talkies? Ok. Add one to the order.
 

kayn1n32008

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You can consider that money is saved from buying another repeater... (nothing may be wrong with the existing)... but when you add up the additional cost of more expensive radios (than analog), the cost of an additional repeater is not only a drop in the bucket, it's a smaller bottom line on the quote.



My guess is that rather than being koolaid, the salesman brought over mototrbo units for a demo and to the average business buyer, they don't know the difference between one walkie talkie and the next, and buying walki talkies is about as interesting to them as shopping for rubberbands and paper clips, that's what they buy. So you need a new repeater-thingamabob to work with the new walkie talkies? Ok. Add one to the order.


I just get irritated when people ASSume that going to a digital protocol is 'drinking the Kool-Aid', Meh, even then the price of a XPR-6550IS rated to a VX-927IS rated or an MTSX-xxxxIS rated(the three portables my client has in their fleet, not including mobile radios, is probably close enough that really price is not so much of a factor. IMHO, The features of the Motorola DMR gear are offset by what ever price difference there is. The ability to track portables by GPS, unique radio ID with out the MDC squawk, and the uniform audio levels, plus the extended talk time with out needing to go to a 3000+maH battery are features worth looking at make DMR VERY attractive to the business community. While Canada has not had to suffer through forced narrow banding, we are seeing a HUGE move to digital protocols. It is where technology is going, and there are some nice benefits to doing it. Probably the biggest one with DMR is getting more talk paths with out having to license more frequencies to do it. I can see LTR trunking becoming a thing of the past because of it.


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kayn1n32008

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One thing that I would like to know, is how much of the non-government market is using Thales or Harris radios? Probably not much.


Probably very close to zero percent.

Most businesses are only going to be on one band, and most likely will not need P25. Why waste money on something like Thales or Harris, when you can buy radios for far cheaper, with better warranties, that have much more useful protocols, like DMR.


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