Summary

Despite the promise of lower costs, enhanced interoperability, and improved operational efficiency, traditional government-owned or vendor-managed hosted LMR offerings have not enjoyed wide scale adoption by user agencies. This lack of adoption has been primarily due to governance policies many consider to be overly complicated, restrictive, or lacking an appropriate and clear level of accountability.

In addition to concerns about governance policies, many prospective client agencies have found that government-owned and vendor-managed hosted LMR offerings limit choices in components, devices, and applications. Agencies have found that these hosted offerings are single-vendor and proprietary in nature, restricting their choices for radios, consoles and other components to those offered by that vendor.

Carrier-hosted P25 as a Service, by its very nature, does not come with the same “governance baggage” that has limited the acceptance of traditional hosted LMR offerings. For decades, the core business of telecommunications carriers has been the management and operation of open, standards-compliant networks. Using these networks, carriers have provided voice, data, video and other hosted mission-critical communications services to business, military and government entities, transparently handling issues such as network maintenance, upgrades, and implementation of new technology.

Because carriers are in the business of selling a service, they have long recognized the need for open, standards-compliant networks that can interoperate with a wide range of components, devices and applications. That’s why carrier-provided P25 as Service offerings are designed to take advantage of industry best practices, and facilitate interoperability.

For several years, Bell Canada has offered a successful hosted P25 solution in Canada. Its recent agreements with the cities of Ottawa and Ville de Mirabel are just two examples of the increasing number of municipalities, counties, and other government agencies that are turning to P25 as a Service to achieve lower, more predicable costs, without the governance issues other managed P25 services carry. Nor has Bell Canada’s success gone unnoticed, as several other carriers are getting ready to introduce their own P25 as a Service offerings in the U.S. and Canada.

Major Steve Williams, retired, and the former Chief Technology Officer for the Florida Highway Patrol recently stated, “With the proper governance model and the proper checks and balances in place, a hosted P25 solution will work. It is just a matter of getting everyone adjusted to a new more modern approach to LMR services; one that most are already doing with other mission-critical IT resources in their public-safety environments that help them meet their business objectives”

Carrier-provided P25 as a Service delivers an operational model that empowers client agencies to take control of their technology investments while enjoying predictable costs, and without sacrificing radio coverage, system resilience, redundancy, or future migration to next generation technology. Public-safety agencies are therefore able to benefit from a technology relationship with an organization whose life lines are based on deploying and maintaining mission critical systems.

About the Author

With over 20 years of executive management experience in both domestic and international environments, Alphonso E. Hamilton has consistently demonstrated his ability to develop business strategies, expand markets and cultivate strategic alliances. In his current role as Head of Strategic Business, Mr. Hamilton is responsible for directing all business development activities for Airbus DS Communications portfolio of Project 25 (P25) land mobile radio solutions in the U.S. Public Safety market.

Prior to joining Airbus DS Communications, Mr. Hamilton held executive positions at New Media Technologies, Lucent Technologies, Nortel Networks, and a number of other high-tech firms.