Sep 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Donny Jackson

Demonstration shows that wireless broadband isn't just for data anymore

In recent years, the public-safety community's interest in broadband technologies has increased tremendously, as first-responder agencies have realized the benefits of leveraging high-speed networks that enable IP-based applications such as remote reporting, identification and mapping.

Of course, the most fundamental application is voice. While broadband networks certainly have the capacity to accomodate the relatively low bandwidth needs of voice, this capability typically has not been a focal point for public-safety agencies for several reasons, including fondness for their private land mobile radio systems, the lack of hardening in many broadband networks and the desire to reserve broadband capacity for data applications that are not effective when attempted on LMR networks.

But IP-based wireless broadband networks can be used for voice, something the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has demonstrated in recent months with its radio-over-wireless-broadband (ROW-B) project. In addition to providing interoperable, push-to-talk (P2T) capability between disparate technologies — even with devices not designed with push-to-talk functionality — the solution also is designed to provide enhanced situational awareness through location and presence functionality.

“Our aim is … to find ways to complement and augment [LMR radio],” said Luke Klein-Berndt, chief technology officer for the DHS Office for Interoperability and Compatibility (OIC). “There may be a bus driver that you may want to be able to talk to during an incident, but you don't want to have to give him a $5000 [LMR] radio.”

While such interoperability solutions have long been considered possible and discussed for years, this one is available immediately, said Gordon Reichard, CEO of ISCO International.

“What you're going to see today is not smoke and mirrors, it's real,” Reichard said.

Key components of the ROW-B solution are the P2T-over-cellular (PoC) capabilities of Clarity Communications — a subsidiary of ISCO International — and the recently created bridging systems interface (BSI) protocol that enables widespread P2T capability via broadband wireless networks.

Clarity's software-based technology enables any handheld device using the Windows Mobile or BREW operating systems and operating on a wireless network that supports IP packet data — for instance, a CDMA EV-DO or WCDMA network, but not an EDGE network — to act as a P2T device with a call-setup time of less than 800 milliseconds with quality-of-service assurances, said Dan Esposito, systems engineer for Clarity Communications.

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