A look back at the Top 10 stories of 2014

3. “Former Nextel execs embark on another PTT venture – and possibly broadband – with Pacific DataVision” – Morgan O’Brien, who is best known for being one of the founders of Nextel Communications, made headlines this year when it was announced that he was part of a new push-to-talk venture. But O’Brien has stressed that this isn’t the second coming of Nextel. “This is nothing like iDEN,” O’Brien said in September. “This is a radio, not a telephone, and we don’t anticipate having telephone interconnect on our service.  In other words, we’re deploying on this 900 MHz spectrum the way it was originally contemplated to be deployed, which is with high-site [technology]. On the other hand, this isn't traditional dispatch, either; we'll be offering — as an enhancement to dispatch —mobile resource-management solutions developed over the last decade by Pacific DataVision. We'll also continue to grow and support these solutions through our carrier partners.” The first systems are expected to start rolling out in the first quarter of 2015.

2. “LA-RICS inks deal with Motorola Solutions for public-safety LTE network” – In March, the Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications System (LA-RICS) Authority approved a $175 million contract with Motorola Solutions, kicking off one of the first—and the largest—public-safety LTE networks with a spectrum-lease agreement with FirstNet.  

1. “Motorola Solutions announces first public-safety portable radio with LTE connectivity” – When Motorola Solutions unveiled its APX 7000L radio in March, it introduced to the market the first public-safety-grade LMR handheld with LTE connectivity. “With over-the-air programming, to send over a new code plug … over traditional LMR data networks, it could take several minutes to do that. [With the LTE connectivity], we can take a 3 MB file and shove it over in less than 12 seconds,” said Mike Petersen, the company’s director of ASTRO subscriber product management.

Other big news related to Motorola Solutions this year involved a call for an investigation of anti-competitive allegations from three House Democrats, the $3.45 billion sale of its enterprise unit to Zebra Technologies and the purchase of Twisted Pair.