Remember to feed the elephants 

By David Kahn

Earlier this year I attended NIST’s 700 MHz Public Safety Broadband Demonstration Stakeholders Meeting, where very smart people presented their visions for the national LTE/4G network. However there seemed to be a few elephants in the room that largely were ignored....

Much has changed, with many more changes to come 

By Lynnette Luna

It’s been quite an educational journey, watching the public-safety industry move from a high-niche industry to one now poised to leverage the commercial advantages of LTE technology. I can’t wait to see how it plays out....

Kudos to the FCC for adding engineering muscle 

By Glenn Bischoff (glenn.bischoff@penton.com)

Should everything fall into place for public safety, it will launch one of the most exciting eras in the history of public-safety communications. It also will be one of the most stressful and challenging eras. The FCC is going to need all of the engineering muscle it can get....

University researchers focus on another kind of interoperability 

By Glenn Bischoff (glenn.bischoff@penton.com)

Researchers at the University of New Hampshire are working to ensure interoperability of the components that go into a variety of communications devices. The goal not only is to make such devices perform better, but also to reduce the price that end users pay for them....

Why aren't more people talking about multiband radios? 

By Mary Rose Roberts (maryrose.roberts@penton.com)

Where are we when it comes to deploying high-tech communications technology that is needed to address the multi-faceted response of monumental disasters? I immediately thought of multiband radios....

Bay Area broadband resolution needed ASAP 

By Donny Jackson

Clear governance structure and processes are vital components to any successful interoperability initiative....

Leveraging multiband capability part of Missouri model 

By Donny Jackson

Like many state, Missouri has a “classic urban-rural dichotomy,” with the bulk of the state’s population being in the metropolitan areas of Kansas City and St. Louis, which the rest of the citizenry is dispersed across an expansive geographic region. As a result, using the propagation characteristics of VHF makes sense for the state....

Motorola, Harris make ISSI connection in Dallas 

By Donny Jackson

While the capabilities of ISSI gateways have been discussed at length and demonstrated numerous times, only recently has the technology been used to provide a link between active mission-critical LMR networks built by different vendors. The first such ISSI link is located in Dallas, connecting the city’s Motorola network and DFW Airport’s Harris network....

Essential elements of a successful public-safety network 

By Jon Peha

As debate has intensified over one aspect of the National Broadband Plan -- the amount of spectrum allocated directly to public safety -- there is a danger that we will lose sight of those issues more likely to make the difference between success and failure....

Stop bullying — or else 

By Robert H. Schwaninger Jr.

Much has been written about public-safety entities' shared frustration with 800 MHz rebanding and the players involved in that effort. However, when compared to the way that many regional planning committees work, the rebanding process seems entirely logical....

Will multiband radio replace PS network build-out? 

By Mary Rose Roberts

The eventual widespread availability of the multiband radios makes me wonder: If they hit the market next year and public-safety agencies nationwide adopt them, why do we need to build out a broadband, public-safety network? ...

Is P25 finally reaching maturity? 

By Lynnette Luna

They're finally here. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Office for Interoperability and Compatibility announced that eight laboratories were approved to test equipment as part of the Project 25 Compliance Assessment Program....

First-responder broadband network should be a national imperative 

By Glenn Bischoff

The wide-ranging discussion at a recent webinar on mobile broadband data for first responders eventually found its way to the proposed nationwide broadband network for first responders....

English as a first language 

By Glenn Bischoff (glenn.bischoff@penton.com)

What good is interoperable communications at a major incident if no one can understand anyone else, because everyone is trying to communicate using their agency's unique codes?...

Get out of the sandbox 

By Glenn Bischoff

Jim Vlassopoulos, the deputy chief of Washington, D.C., Fire and EMS, told the roughly 400 attendees of the National Conference on Emergency Communications that they needed to "get outside the sandbox," and advised that "local fiefdoms" — which have plagued the effort to achieve interoperable communications for years — should be avoided in the future because they make it difficult to institute change....