Decision makers need to consider many layers when determining future role of mission-critical voice over LTE

Firefighters aren’t going to run into a burning building with a consumer-level smartphone in their hands. This is true. It’s also irrelevant, because no one is saying that any firefighter would/could/should do such a thing.

First, a consumer smartphone is not the sturdiest device and is not designed for the fireground—it’s simply the wrong tool for the job. If you want someone to cut the lawn, you don’t hand them a pair of scissors.

Second, the notion of a firefighter using both hands in an effort to operate a smartphone—hands that are need for other things, such as putting out the blaze—is nonsensical. The concept is even more ridiculous when one considers the notion that the firefighter is wearing heavy gloves that make touch-screen operations on a small handheld device impossible.

But several versions of hardened smart devices for public safety exist today, and the availability of hardened cases that improve the resiliency and form factor of LTE devices—and extend power life, in some cases—has increased greatly during the past several years. There’s little doubt that this market should mature as public-safety and critical-infrastructure adoption of LTE becomes more commonplace worldwide.

What tends to happen is that people pigeonhole a technology based only on their experience with it at the time. When I began covering this industry in 2003, the notion of depending on an IP-based technology was non-starter for many of my public-safety sources. “In an emergency, you don’t have time to hit CTRL-ALT-DEL,” referring to frequent need to reboot computer systems at the time.

But well-designed IP networks have proven to be very reliable and resilient from a performance standpoint (not withstanding potential cyberattacks, which was not something anyone really worried about 10 years ago). Not all LTE communications are going to perform like consumer-grade services, even though that it what we are familiar with today.

And we should be clear about another thing: Firefighters don’t run into burning buildings with LMR radios in their hands, either. The radios are kept inside of turnout gear, and controls are accessed via accessories—all of which can be adapted to work with LTE devices, as well.

Bottom line: As is the case with most electronic technology, making the device smaller can be challenging. But making a device tougher when the form factor can get bigger is definitely doable.

MCPTT over LTE will be available in 2018, which is when it will replace LMR. Whoa, let’s slow down a bit. Yes, the MCPTT standard for LTE was approved in March, and typically equipment for an LTE standard is available within a couple of years, so MCPTT theoretically could be deployed in 2018—in fact, it could be a service offered on the FirstNet system by the end of 2018, if the projected deployment timeline falls into place perfectly. It could be utilized in South Korea and the United Kingdom even sooner.

But making an MCPTT-over-LTE service available and actually trusting it in the life-and-death scenarios that first responders face every day are two entirely different things.