Push-to-talk-over-cellular (PoC) services have significant impact on commercial LMR market, IWCE speakers say

Given this, implementing a PoC solution often is an afterthought, George said.

“The managers for these hotels naturally come along later and say, ‘We bought all of these iPod Touches and equipped all of our people to run this cool app. It seems kind of stupid to be carrying around this walkie-talkie—we already have a fully wired facility with free Wi-Fi, so we shouldn’t have to pay any monthly fee [for connectivity]. And—believe or not—our guy who used to take care of the radio system retired, and the new guy who takes care of the radio system is the IT guy, and the IT guy hates anything to do with RF.’ So, that drives that whole decision.”

George said he has seen a similar thought process occurring in the construction business, particularly with trucks carrying concrete mix that is carefully monitored via smart applications that monitor the vehicle’s location and ensure that the concrete is mixed appropriately for the upcoming construction use.

“Once again, the manager of the concrete company comes along once again and says, ‘Gosh, we’ve got these Samsung tablets [in concrete trucks], and they’re tied into the LTE network. Is there any way they can do voice?’” George said. “And somebody says, ‘Oh yeah, we can get this PoC app.’ Then, they just have to buy a microphone or speaker from me to attach to that tablet.

“We’re seeing a lot of that—literally thousands of units per month in that space. These radios are just being replaced.”

Josh Lober, president of ESChat—an over-the-top PoC application—said the transportation sector is his company’s largest customer base, but he also has seen adoption in Wi-Fi-centric enterprises, as well.

“There could be a logistics or distribution center that has commercial or industrial Wi-Fi in it, and they don’t need to buy devices with LTE carrier service,” Lober said. “It’s pretty popular.”

Mike Newburn, wireless manager for Fairfax County, Va., explained how his county saved more than $16 million in capital expenditure and $2 million annually by adopting a PoC solution from AT&T instead of replacing its LMR system for general government workers in the county that did not require mission-critical communications.

Newburn stressed that Fairfax County has reliable AT&T coverage—“obviously, we couldn’t have looked at this, if we had no coverage,” he said—and had provided general government workers with devices, including the drivers of the second-largest school-bus fleet in the country. With the PoC application, Fairfax County has been able be much more flexible in locating dispatch operations, he said.

In addition to the considerable savings from PoC and support for other broadband applications, Fairfax County has benefited from better voice quality, Newburn said.

“On the broadband side, the voice quality is almost HD [high definition]—the clarity and the tonal quality of the voice is just night-and-day different [from LMR],” Newburn said. “FM [LMR radio] obviously has got a lot lower bandwidth so you don’t get that quality

“What we’re seeing on the broadband side is much, much clearer and crisper. The person you’re talking to, you know what they sound like on broadband, while on radio, it’s kind of generic, especially on P25.”

Leonardo Gonzalez, a product development manager for Verizon Wireless, said he believes commercial users will continue to migrate push-to-talk communications from LMR to PoC solutions.

“There is a natural migration, as people are starting to realize that [PoC] PTT solutions provide the communications that they want and the fact that they run an application,” Gonzalez said. “As Dave [George] said, voice is just another app on the smartphone. With a lot of users, they usually talk about the fact that all of the younger people—30 or less, or 40 or less—grew up using Gameboys and all kinds of communications being in their hands, and that’s what they’re expecting when they start working full time.

“[They say,] ‘Why would I use this big clunky radio, if I can use a smartphone that will give me all of those capabilities: voice, data and video—everything that I want?’ It’s a natural migration, and that migration is going to happen. “Sometimes it’s driven by cost … when people realize, ‘Why would spend money paying an LMR provider when I can do everything on my own Wi-Fi network?’ The migration is there.”