What we think will happen in 2011
- Significantly more public-private partnerships, as entities on both sides of the equation cope with having to do more with less.
- A big increase in applications developed for smart devices, for both the enterprise and public-safety sectors.
- Increased availability of ruggedized personnel tracking and monitoring systems, driven by the completion of related standards and vendor recognition of the market potential for such systems.
- Progress will be made regarding the problems digital radios have in noisy environments, but adoption by fire departments will continue to be slow, as a result of funding and perception issues.
- The market for electronic health records systems will explode, driven by health-care-reform laws.
- Adoption of unmanned aerial vehicles will increase dramatically, in both the public-safety and enterprise sectors, as payloads become more versatile.
- Budget crises in the 911 sector will increase emergency call center consolidations.
- At least one LTE/LMR partnership will dissolve, due to incompatible business interests.
- Spectrum lease agreements will be scrutinized much more closely in the wake of the San Francisco Bay controversy.
- Numerous public-safety entities will file for narrowbanding waivers; some will do so because they'd prefer to invest in broadband, while others will recognize that there is no way to meet the FCC's 2013 deadline.
- The FCC will grant waivers to the former, but not to the latter.
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