News
Motorola Solutions issues statement regarding company’s TETRA plans in North America
Motorola Solutions recently received FCC certification for a TETRA base station—a technological offering that the company has deployed extensively throughout in other continents, but not in North America. Motorola Solutions declined to be interviewed by IWCE’s Urgent Communications about its North American TETRA plans, but the company did provide the following statement:
“Motorola Solutions is pleased to have gained FCC certification for our Dimetra TETRA base station.,” the company’s statement reads. “While there has been little customer demand to date for TETRA in North America, when a customer weighs the considerations and selects TETRA technology, Motorola Solutions will help that customer to design the right communications solution drawing from its award-winning TETRA portfolio and will add our expertise in evaluating potential case-by-case interference issues that have not yet been addressed by the FCC or standards bodies.
“For radio communications outside of public safety, Motorola Solutions brings the advantage of a portfolio inclusive of every major radio standard, to advise organizations on the best technology selection to meet their needs and aspirations.”
On the surface, the statement appears to support an oft-repeated opinion by Motorola Solutions officials that Project 25 (P25) should be the interoperable standard used by public-safety personnel in North America, while other LMR standards can be considered more in other use cases.
“User requirements, spectrum assets, interoperability needs, and regulatory considerations will all factor in to providing our trusted counsel,” according to the statement. “Delivering the performance demanded by private-mobile-radio users require designing to exceptional standards; ensuring availability, survivability, and interoperability—often under the most unusual circumstances.
“Motorola Solutions is the global market leader in the infrastructure and devices supporting each of the major radio communications standards around the world—Project 25, TETRA and DMR. Our strong market position in each of these technology standards is founded on the deep investments we make in advancing the performance of radio technology. as well as our focus on connecting networks, devices, applications, partners and services to provide complete solutions aligned to our customers’ needs.”
TETRA in the US will be the
TETRA in the US will be the Motorola version of OpenSky….and equally successful.
Yes and No. TETRA is an
Yes and No. TETRA is an internationally recognized and accepted standards-based technology with a long and successful history – unlike OpenSky. It has been Motorola who has prevented TETRA from being adopted in NA as a public safety standard – unlike elsewhere in the world where it handles both military and public safety communications. Now that the N. American opportunity window for public safety use of TETRA has been, essentially, closed because of Moto’s successful delaying tactics, do they pull this marketing stunt. I doubt Moto will push it. Far too much profit to give up vs. P25!! They will continue to push Trbo where they can for non-PS digital applications. TETRA is hands-down winner for critical infrastructure applications and transportation and that’s where it will find limited success. Too bad for public safety -and the taxpayers that their money is feeding Motorola profits. Hey, congrats, Motorola!!
Not willing to talk about
Not willing to talk about this technology in North America once again demonstrates Moto’s fight to keep open source technology out of this market. They did it first with “DPL” then “Privacy Plus” (battling against MPT1327) and, of course “SmartNet” and “SmartZone” against TETRA. At least we now have P25 Trunking and TETRA that Moto cannot control
The tone is condescending, as
The tone is condescending, as might be expected. In essence, they now see a potential market for Tetra in N.A. and won’t be left out of the space, but can’t be seen to be back-tracking on their previous position that Tetra is deficient.
Reading between the lines, I see: “If any of our potential customers is crazy enough to use Tetra, we will be there to bait the hook and switch them to one of our core offerings”.
Too bad. Tetra is great for the right application.
A genuine conflict of
A genuine conflict of interest.
It is easy to take shots at
It is easy to take shots at this subject when your name on this thread is “Anonymous”. The following opinions are mine and should not reflect on my various associations with Motorola over the last couple of decades. Please look at the big picture. P25, TETRA, Open Sky, NexEdge, IDAS, MotoTRBO, conventional, etc. Disparate technologies can all be interoperable at the console level or with various other devices and soft switches so designing a new system is done with the customer’s demands as the driver as Motorola suggests in their press release. APCO, the FCC, IACP, and other industry drivers demanded and drove the development of Best Practices for advancing our wireless two-way radio world. Motorola invested more in the industry than many others of their competitors combined so like any other investor, their return should be greater which is just a good business principle.
Don’t forget that Motorola’s products used in conjunction with PS professionals at all levels, saves lives everyday due to its product performance and mission critical efforts of many of its employees and channel partners with the investment to provide a solid technology and reliable P25 platform. No one else stepped up or made the investment in P16 like GE Ericsson and Motorola or in P25 like Motorola did. Moto invested $Billions in R&D annually because of the new P25 demands of the market, military, public safety and APCO technical committees. As a result of their investment and product performance they have captured the US market for all those reasons. Remember – in the early days of P25 development they worked with engineers from EFJ and other manufacturing companies to help other manufacturers learn and understand the technology platform being created to allow others to compete for an open platform P25 back early in the Millenium. Motorola provided circuit boards, chip sets, other accessories and components along with code programming information to assist their competition. Why? To provide alternatives where they could compete for Fair and Open competition for government contracts and not be accused of being the only source for P25 products, although they lead the investment, etc. (My thoughts, not theirs officially).
Whether you like them or their products or not, you can’t fault them for providing PS Comms that make the mission critical communications work to insure interoperability for their users (and other manufacturers too now) during the moments that matter. There are millions of mission critical users that go home after their shift alive every day that look forward to serving the next day because of the investment that Motorola (and others) collectively have made in the P25 platform. You can’t take that away because that’s what it’s about. Can you imagine where we’d be today in PS communications if they hadn’t made that investment and took the leadership role that they did when they did? That’s scary to think about….
So again to appease a variety of users and encourage competition, they are stepping up once again and addressing it in the US market cautiously like any other good business would do with a new venture in a new territory so to speak. If you were in their position, you’d do the same thing. They also put their money where their mouth is. They support and donate heavily to the industry for education through grants and via their Foundation and other allocated sources of funding. For example, they annually donate $50,000 to the APCO Scholarship Fund to assist in reimbursing APCO Conference Attendees so they can become more proficient at their jobs as dispatch operators and system administrators having completed formal training for such. There are many other examples of how Motorola “gives back” too. I’m not saying others don’t, but think about the big picture too. Thanks Motorola for what you’ve done and what you’re doing to progress our industry with new products and relationships, and good luck in your new business venture for the benefit of all who rely on those products to protect and serve.
Gary, excellent dissertation
Gary, excellent dissertation on the background and depth of Motorola’s involvement with P25 – and their position in public safety communications market. I guess the previous points are that Motorola, because of its position as the “800 lb. gorilla,” can and DID drive the development of P25 as the U.S. digital PS “standard.” Let’s face it, APCO, IACP, NPSTC, and others, are just Motorola proxies. P25 was NOT adopted because of those organizations’ independent efforts. Motorola drove them in that direction through their influence over public safety communicators. It is/was part of Moto’s grand plan and, to their credit, they were wildly successful. And, yes, they had to protect their significant investment!! Sure, the end result is a good platform for mission-critical PS communications but, keeping other technologies out to protect their investments borders on – and probably crosses into – anti-trust violations. Why is the House looking into Moto’s business practices?? Motorola is a bully, has prevented, or at least stunted, the free market expansion of LMR in the US, and has prevented, until recently (probably under threat of an anti-trust lawsuit), a proven mission-critical digital technology (TETRA) from being used by those who deem it to be the best solution for their business. Who is Motorola to decide what’s best for end user? At least until recently. My problem with Motorola is their business practices and their culture. I don’t have a problem with the P25 platform and definitely have the greatest respect for their engineers and product..