Tyco Electronics unveils new base stations, simulcast offering
LAS VEGAS — Tyco Electronics Wireless Systems introduced two new base stations and a linear simulcast solution to its infrastructure portfolio — as well as a commitment to add the P25 dual-rate vocoder to its voice products — this week during the International Wireless Communications Expo (IWCE).
After unveiling a MASTR V digital base station for the 700 MHz band last year, Tyco Electronics introduced the 800 MHz MASTR V base station, which features a compact design that allows eight channels to be installed in a single 83-inch cabinet and the capability to do most maintenance remotely. Scheduled to be in volume production during the second half of this year, the 800 MHz MASTR V complies with the P25 Phase 1 standard and provides a migration path to the P25 Phase 2 standard.
“The demand [for the 800 MHz MASTR V base station] is definitely coming from the public-safety market, particularly those who not to go to P25 and will have to upgrade to Phase II for capacity reasons,” Dwane Hartmann, Tyco’s product manager for site products said during an interview with Urgent Communications.
The MASTR V base station also supports the vendor’s new Project 25 to the power of Internet Protocol (P25IP) trunked linear simulcast solution that uses WCQPK modulation to improve coverage and provide better-quality digital voice to messages being broadcast from multiple transmitter sites simultaneously using the same RF frequencies, Hartmann said. With the ability to operate on either the 700 MHz or 800 MHz frequency bands, the new simulcast offering is P25 Phase 1 performance and will be software upgradeable to P25 Phase 2.
Within the 4.9 GHz band dedicated for licensed use for public safety, Tyco Electronics unveiled the new VIDA broadband multilink base station, which includes the added functionality of a WiMAX subscriber to allow the offering to function as a high-capacity, low-latency repeater in point-to-multipoint WiMAX networks.
“The value of extending the reach of the secure broadband data stream to remote users is immeasurable,” Tim Romanelli, Tyco’s national sales manager for wireless broadband, said in a prepared statement. “The VIDA broadband multilink base station does that while maintaining the network capacity through a virtually unlimited number of links.”
Shipping immediately, the 4.9 GHz multilink base station is designed to deliver maximum data throughputs of 19 MB/s on 5 MHz channels or 38 MB/s on 10 MHz channels.
In addition, Tyco announced that it has added the TIA-approved P25 dual-rate vocoder to its VIDA communications networks and subscriber radios. By differentiating between speech and background noise more effectively, the dual-rate vocoder software is designed to enhance the quality of voice communications in high-noise environments.
“You can have higher ambient noise and still get a clear signal through,” Tyco product manager Jim Reid said during an interview with Urgent Communications.
The dual-rate vocoder is supported by the M7300, M7200, M5300, P7200, P5400 and P5300 subscriber radios, as well as the Interoperability Gateway, the MaestroIP and VIP dispatch consoles.
“Folks that already have these radios just need a software update,” Reid said.
