Changes in LA-RICS public-safety LTE plans also will impact proposed P25 network, executive director says

One potential source for new sites for both the LA-RICS LTE and P25 networks is the state of California—a fact noted last week by FirstNet Chairwoman Sue Swenson and Mallon. On Monday, Mallon said he planned to speak with officials representing the state of California transportation department (Caltrans) and the California Highway Patrol (CHP) to explore potential options.

The linkage between the LA-RICS public-safety LTE and LMR systems is not limited to siting issues. While most public-safety LTE network deployments are focused almost exclusively on providing high-speed data connectivity to first responders, the LA-RICS LTE system also was supposed to have an important role in voice communications.

A significant amount of public-safety communications in the Los Angeles area are conducted over LMR networks operating in the T-Band UHF spectrum (470-512 MHz). However, the law passed by Congress in 2012 that created FirstNet also stipulates that public-safety entities must vacate the T-Band spectrum in 2021.

With this in mind, LA-RICS planned to migrate its mission-critical voice traffic currently on the T-Band system to the new P25 network on 700 MHz narrowband spectrum, Mallon has said. Because there are not enough available channels at 700 MHz to accommodate all of the T-Band voice traffic, LA-RICS planned to offload non-mission-critical voice traffic to the public-safety LTE network—a critical component in meeting the overall voice-communications requirements in the region, according to Mallon.