Why P25 phase II instead of DMR tier 3?

[alcahuete]

Any cops carry an APX900?

NYPD

 

[kayn1n32008]

The discussion so far is about the P25 mode vs the DMR mode. How about the ruggedness of the radio? How long would a XPR7550 last on a cop’s belt? One shift? It might last on Barney Fife’s belt, but not in the real world. Just turn the volume control on an APX6000, or 4000, & compare that to a XPR7550. That says it all. Any cops carry an APX900?

Cops carry their radios in cases or pouches on their duty belts or vests.

I'd argue that industrial/plant/oilfield users are far harder on radios than law enforcement.

They usually get thrown in a back pocket of FR coveralls. Or clipped to the front pocket. Usually no case or any protection.

After using a beat up 7/800MHz APX6000 in a oilsands mine, I can say I wasn't overly impressed with it.

 

[kayn1n32008]

If there was a significant demand for "more solid, durable radios & better audio, higher encryption regardless of the digital mode" (at what would necessarily be a higher price) they would probably be on the market right now. IMHO, the "stop" is that the majority of DMR system users are willing to accept the features and price point of the radios currently offered.

Most current radios offered from reputable manufacturers offer AES256.

The biggest problem with AES256, amd DMR in general is how encryption keys are managed. Key managemebt in a DMR environment sucks. Motorola **** the bed for key management in their DMR radios.

Kenwood and Tait offer DMR in the same classes of radios as what they offer P25.

Kenwood has seriously stepped up to the plate with the VP series radios, especially the VP8000.

Tait is seriously upping their game as well, offering a multiband DMR platform.

 

[N4KVE]

I'd argue that industrial/plant/oilfield users are far harder on radios than law enforcement.

After using a beat up 7/800MHz APX6000 in a oilsands mine, I can say I wasn't overly impressed with it.

And Moto came out with the APX4000XH for that. It’s like a 4000 on steroids.

 

[kayn1n32008]

And Moto came out with the APX4000XH for that. It’s like a 4000 on steroids.

This system is entirely APX6000/APX6000XE(site emergency services) portables and probably APX4500 mobiles. The APX4000XH probably wasn't released when this system went live.

 

[mmckenna]

I'd argue that industrial/plant/oilfield users are far harder on radios than law enforcement.

I'll second that. I have a PD that uses the Kenwood NX-210. Plant guys using NX-410s'. Same radios, different bands, the Plant guys are much harder on their radios than PD is. PD's tend to look after their radios since they are an important tool. Tactical vests or leather cases to protect them. Plant guys, not so much.

 

[Medic805]

The discussion so far is about the P25 mode vs the DMR mode. How about the ruggedness of the radio? How long would a XPR7550 last on a cop’s belt? One shift? It might last on Barney Fife’s belt, but not in the real world. Just turn the volume control on an APX6000, or 4000, & compare that to a XPR7550. That says it all. Any cops carry an APX900?

For what it's worth, my locality has been using the 7550 portables for a little over five years now with relatively few destroyed radios. Even our fire guys are carrying the 7550s during interior ops. Worn under turnouts, they have done well. Most radios that we have seen destroyed, have been because they get ran over or go skipping across the highway because someone left them on the roof of a patrol car or the tailboard of an engine.

As with everything YMMV.

 

[speedway_navigator]

someone left them on the roof of a patrol car or the tailboard of an engine.

I have a few PD and FD friends who have done that, gravity always wins.

 

[emacs]

The discussion so far is about the P25 mode vs the DMR mode. How about the ruggedness of the radio? How long would a XPR7550 last on a cop’s belt? One shift? It might last on Barney Fife’s belt, but not in the real world. Just turn the volume control on an APX6000, or 4000, & compare that to a XPR7550. That says it all. Any cops carry an APX900?

I’ve lost count of the number of APX 6000s and 8000s that have come back with broken volume pots. Minitor VIs constantly have speakers go bad. They’re not bulletproof.

We have a number of FD/PD/EMS users with XPR 7000- and 3000-series radios, and while the 7000s’ speakers fail and 3000s’ PTT buttons crack, the overall rate of failure doesn’t seem much different from the public safety stuff.

Of course, an APX XE is easier to use in turnout gear, will hold up better to extreme heat, etc., but for an officer who spends most of their day in their car or an EMT who rides around in the ambulance, the “PCR”-grade radios tend to work well enough in my experience. If you don’t need P25, the step up from an R7 to an APX 900 isn’t worth the price difference to a lot of users.

 

[MTS2000des]

I’ve lost count of the number of APX 6000s and 8000s that have come back with broken volume pots. Minitor VIs constantly have speakers go bad. They’re not bulletproof.

I have over 4,000 APX6000s and 300 APX6000XEs fielded since 2016. Not one of them has a broken volume pot.
Now there were two dozen that got recalled for defective control tops and I depot'ed them under warranty in 2017 (6000XEs).
One city bought some AN 6000s in 2013 that had defective volume pots, all of which were covered under an MTN from back in 2014. They had these radios before they migrated to our system. Some have loose/wobbly knobs but their radios are also a decade old and they never sent them in under the covered MTN and that MTNis now expired. Their fault.

We have an Astro 25 R2021.2 M core and this is a public safety grade network with 15 RF subsites, linear simulcast and 4 console sites. No way any business class DMR system offers availability, redundancy, and performance for life safety. We also have a UHF LCP network with 4 sites for non-public safety and yes, low cost radios are find for school buses, public works and school security guards.

 

[xmo]

MTS2000des wrote: "No way any business class DMR system offers availability, redundancy, and performance for life safety."
--------
Exactly. It's not about the capabilities of the air interface. DMR has evolved to meet the needs of business users. Even if public safety systems were based on the DMR protocol, the products, systems, and costs would have evolved to look like today's P25.

P25 systems support entire states with tens of thousands of users. P25 regional systems with redundant (DSR) cores support multiple counties, each with a simulcast system comprised of multiple sub-sites and console sites with several dispatch positions. Each console position is capable of utilizing any system resource for interoperability and cross-county dispatch redundancy.

Doing all that 24x7x365 with total reliability takes a sophisticated infrastructure - far beyond a couple SLR repeaters with IP site connect.

This system has changed a lot since the picture was taken, but you get the idea and the scale of today's public safety systems.

 

[speedway_navigator]

Nice to see a technical discussion based on facts without a lot of egos getting in the way. Some discussions in other forums have gotten to the point of finger pointing and slurs about technical ability, the kids version of 'my dad can beat up your dad'.

MTS2k your system sounds interesting, can you post an overall diagram or has Motorola and or your agency marked it restricted?
Ours has 'confidential restricted' at the bottom.

It also has these notes from an engineer complete with standard engineer English grammar errors.
"fiber and T1 is counties responsibility" and "all VLAN's need to come out at prime site."

This is a single county system, since when did plural and possessive become interchangeable?

Xmo I'm assuming you don't live in an earthquake zone, I don't think that free standing tower PC would last long if a quake hit.

 

[xmo]

No, not an earthquake zone but most free-standing items in the picture were in transition.

Regarding connectivity, here is a description of how public safety connectivity is implemented in the system pictured.

Reliable backhaul is the top level. You don’t just plug a few routers into internet connections. At the top level is a regional microwave ring, carrier class, real radios, dishes, and waveguides; dual polarity 2xOC3 BW, fully redundant, with MPLS SARs at each node. This ring connects the DSR master CORE sites, and touches ever county.

Within each county, a similar OC3 carrier class ring connects all sites: dispatch console, prime, and RF, again with MPLS SAR’s at every node. In addition, critical paths such as CORE to CORE, CORE to prime, and CORE to dispatch console have parallel fiber for triple redundancy.

A high level network services software platform automates operations and provides the tools for monitoring, administering, and controlling the entire backhaul network. Administrators are immediately notified of any outages which are automatically compensated for with no disruption of bearer services.

Two types of ‘users’ ride the backhaul. Customer network (CEN) and Motorola (RNI). The CEN carries everything from security cameras, standby generator status / control, CAD, and multi-node IP 911 telephony. Thus, every dispatch location, primary or back-up, is capable of handling the functions needed for any of the connected 911 centers. In a forced evacuation, protocols transfer functions to neighbors until dispatch staff can relocate.

The radio system network (RNI) is totally isolated through epipes, tunnels, and other such network esoterica. The DSR COREs are constantly communicating with each other so that the physical loss of the active one results in the other immediately carrying the full system. I say physical loss because that’s the point of DSR. Otherwise, every component in a master CORE is fully redundant so that any single entity can fail or be replaced with zero effect on users

 

[Trbogeek]

The discussion so far is about the P25 mode vs the DMR mode. How about the ruggedness of the radio? How long would a XPR7550 last on a cop’s belt? One shift? It might last on Barney Fife’s belt, but not in the real world. Just turn the volume control on an APX6000, or 4000, & compare that to a XPR7550. That says it all. Any cops carry an APX900?

Nothing for nothing, we have approaching 2000 XPR7570s in use by Police, Fire, EMS, on wide area DMR trunk system, for years, with no issues. Fire use aside, the environment these radios live in doesn't remotely require a high tier APX radio. A bored EMS technician, with nothing to do for hours, picking at the buttons with a pen, is far more a problem .....

 

[Trbogeek]

No way any business class DMR system offers availability, redundancy, and performance for life safety.

A Local DMR trunk system, currently out performs surrounding county systems, which has prompted many Public Safety agencies to explore, migration to this system. Integrated consoles (currently 198 channel resources, 47 console positions), interoperability, all required features P25 offers, at a realistic price. Backbone is 100% "Public Safety" grade, with site, network, redundancy, hardened sites. Several more communities are ready to move to this system after the first of the year. FWIW, there is a Federal agency on the system, running AES 256 on XPRs, for several years, and continue to comment on how much better this system performs over the other system. Saying that there's no way DMR System offers availability, redundancy, performance, for life safety, shows quite a bit of tunnel vision.

 

[MTS2000des]

A Local DMR trunk system, currently out performs surrounding county systems, which has prompted many Public Safety agencies to explore, migration to this system. Integrated consoles (currently 198 channel resources, 47 console positions), interoperability, all required features P25 offers, at a realistic price. Backbone is 100% "Public Safety" grade, with site, network, redundancy, hardened sites. Several more communities are ready to move to this system after the first of the year. FWIW, there is a Federal agency on the system, running AES 256 on XPRs, for several years, and continue to comment on how much better this system performs over the other system. Saying that there's no way DMR System offers availability, redundancy, performance, for life safety, shows quite a bit of tunnel vision.

How do you manage keys on a MotoTRBO system? No provision for OTAR, no KMF, no real security and MSI won't sell AES-256 to just anyone. The bottom line is MotoTRBO is not Astro 25.

Do your consoles support console priority? Patching? Multi-select? What about other vendor's subscribers? If you aren't running CapMax with licenses for DMR tier 3, you're on a walled garden business grade system. How do you accomplish and establish talk group priority during peak usage periods? What group call rules are in place (all start vs fast start)? Simulcast? All of these are a no brainer in the P25 world.

I operate both for a reason. P25 for life safety and public safety, LCP for school buses and non-critical public services. While RAS keeps the pirates at bay, all I have is welfare encryption but it keeps the stalkers/streamers away. BTW I have both riding on my Aviat microwave on separate V-LANs. MSI originally told me this couldn't be done.

 

[Trbogeek]

How do you manage keys on a MotoTRBO system? We have separate keys for TGs needing encryption, and because of what services are on these TGs, we don't have the need to re-key. That being said, we can re-key a TG via Wi-Fi on E radios, if we ever thought code was broken.

No provision for OTAR, no KMF, no real security. As above, this isn't a concern. MSI won't sell AES-256 to just anyone. You are correct, but we are able, and have many times, to get that done.
The bottom line is MotoTRBO is not Astro 25. Also agreed, which is why these agencies have chosen to go this path.

Do your consoles support console priority? Yes
Patching? Yes
Multi-select? Yes
What about other vendor's subscribers? Our system, no, but Yes with DMR III
If you aren't running CapMax with licenses for DMR tier 3, you're on a walled garden business grade system. No reason to put other MFG on this system.

How do you accomplish and establish talk group priority during peak usage periods? The system, as well as most, offers priority (highest to Dispatch, PD, Fire subscribers next level down) in system Queue, with transmit interrupt available, DMR III will actually knock down calls based on priority, system loading. Making sure the system operator watches system loading, making sure there are available resources as the system continues to grow, solves preemption issues.

What group call rules are in place (all start vs fast start)? The system is configurable with both options. Fast start is preferred.
Simulcast? This system doesn't need simulcast, but DMR III does currently support it.

All of these are a no brainer in the P25 world. This is an un-true statement, as all this comes at a great expense, and the vast majority of systems don't need much of this, but try to brain wash the public, public safety, to believe it is. Once the layers are pulled back, it's clear there are alternatives, that do not jeopardize safety, reliability, or burn public monies unnecessarily.

I operate both for a reason. P25 for life safety and public safety, LCP for school buses and non-critical public services. Life Safety? This system, running many years, has yet to loose a single life, while public safety using it (anyone else for that matter).

While RAS keeps the pirates at bay, all I have is welfare encryption but it keeps the stalkers/streamers away.

BTW I have both riding on my Aviat microwave on separate V-LANs. MSI originally told me this couldn't be done. This system uses Cambium MW for it's backbone, Cisco hardware. Moto said same thing, yet here we are ....

I don't disagree with you're design, applications, business model, but to say, or imply P25 is the only path for spicific Public Safety entities, across the country, isn't nessesarily reasonable, and clearly not accurate.

 

[MTS2000des]

How do you manage keys on a MotoTRBO system? We have separate keys for TGs needing encryption, and because of what services are on these TGs, we don't have the need to re-key. That being said, we can re-key a TG via Wi-Fi on E radios, if we ever thought code was broken.

No provision for OTAR, no KMF, no real security. As above, this isn't a concern. MSI won't sell AES-256 to just anyone. You are correct, but we are able, and have many times, to get that done.
The bottom line is MotoTRBO is not Astro 25. Also agreed, which is why these agencies have chosen to go this path.

Do your consoles support console priority? Yes
Patching? Yes
Multi-select? Yes
What about other vendor's subscribers? Our system, no, but Yes with DMR III
If you aren't running CapMax with licenses for DMR tier 3, you're on a walled garden business grade system. No reason to put other MFG on this system.

All this is great, you're clearly a TRBO pro- who's put a nice square peg in a round hole, but there is one fatal flaw you left out: grant money.
Call it what you want, but P25 is the way to get grants. No one hands out grant money for DMR except maybe a few school safety grants. The other elephant in the room is life cycle. Business LMR subscribers and FNE are about half of P25. Many P25 systems put on their air in the first half of the 2000s are living on.

My LCP system is unsupported and got killed off a couple years ago. It was bought in 2017. Our P25 went live in 2015 and we're still in year 8 of 10 of our SUA.

Being limited to buying a single vendors subscriber means you're married to MSI. We have L3H, JVC Kenwood, Relm and Tait on our system. The radios support every feature including inhibit, regroup, fail soft, et al and support both ARC-4 and AES encryption. Giving stakeholders and customer agencies a choice of subscriber means they choose how their dollars are spent and not dictated by the system operator.

Not to mention, interop on MSI TRBO? Have they addresses the "one RID per radio" nonsense yet? My VP8000 does DMR Tier 3 and you can have multiple DMR RIDs, too bad it won't work on our proprietary LCP system.

 

[MTS2000des]

A Local DMR trunk system, currently out performs surrounding county systems, which has prompted many Public Safety agencies to explore, migration to this system.

Let' see the results of a real drive test data with inbound and outbound round trip body worn portable coverage. The "surrounding county system" has how many RF subsites and what was the coverage spec'ed at? Without knowing specifics, it's like saying "my car is faster than yours".

 

[Trbogeek]

All this is great, you're clearly a TRBO pro- who's put a nice square peg in a round hole, but there is one fatal flaw you left out: grant money.
Call it what you want, but P25 is the way to get grants. No one hands out grant money for DMR except maybe a few school safety grants. The other elephant in the room is life cycle. Business LMR subscribers and FNE are about half of P25. Many P25 systems put on their air in the first half of the 2000s are living on.

My LCP system is unsupported and got killed off a couple years ago. It was bought in 2017. Our P25 went live in 2015 and we're still in year 8 of 10 of our SUA.

Being limited to buying a single vendors subscriber means you're married to MSI. We have L3H, JVC Kenwood, Relm and Tait on our system. The radios support every feature including inhibit, regroup, fail soft, et al and support both ARC-4 and AES encryption. Giving stakeholders and customer agencies a choice of subscriber means they choose how their dollars are spent and not dictated by the system operator.

Not to mention, interop on MSI TRBO? Have they addresses the "one RID per radio" nonsense yet? My VP8000 does DMR Tier 3 and you can have multiple DMR RIDs, too bad it won't work on our proprietary LCP system.

What you seem to be missing is, this IS happening, continuing to add PD, Fire, to the system, choosing this over grant handouts. 7k+ radios on the system, growing monthly. You're entitled to your opinions, but it's difficult to ignore the facts, evidence to the contrary.