Will mission-critical PTT be FirstNet’s ‘killer app’?

While subscribing to a data-only FirstNet might not seem like a great investment of local-taxpayer dollars to some elected officials, they should be intrigued by a FirstNet system that provides mobile broadband service and the promise of MCPTT. Maybe the FirstNet voice capability is used only as a complementary service to offload traffic from the LMR network—that what the Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications System (LA-RICS) is proposing to do with its network—but it also could give the agency unprecedented options when it is time to upgrade/replace the LMR system.

This is especially intriguing with the recent passage of the MCPTT standard for LTE. If MCPTT is deployed correctly, public-safety agencies could be able to pick from several qualified vendors that develop interoperable, standardized solutions that they can sell to a global public-safety market. After decades of dealing with capital-intensive, largely proprietary LMR systems, this potential MCPTT-over-LTE ecosystem may look very attractive to elected officials faced with tough budget decisions.

Of course, it must be emphasized that this is a long-term view—and no one can be sure exactly how long it will be until MCPTT-over-LTE is ready for prime time in the public-safety arena. The standard is less than a month old, so there is no application today that can say that it meets all MCPTT requirements, and there is no underlying LTE network that is considered mission critical.

This could change soon, as vendors already are working on MCPTT-compliant solutions and the network issues are expected to be addressed with the deployment of FirstNet in the U.S., as well as proposed public-safety LTE systems in South Korea and the United Kingdom. According to the timeline in FirstNet's RFP, MCPTT-over-LTE could be available in 60% of the FirstNet coverage area in late 2018.

But even if all of this happens as scheduled, there will still be significant development work and testing—both in controlled laboratory environments and eventually in real-world settings—that needs to be done before public-safety personnel will be comfortable enough with MCPTT-over-LTE that they are willing to stake their lives on it.

It would be unwise for elected officials to jump the gun and halt investments in their current LMR systems today, based on the on the promise of MCPTT-over-LTE service. However, monitoring developments in the technology during the upcoming years makes absolute sense, because it could provide much-wanted choices for public-safety communications where few existed before.

With this in mind, MCPTT-over-LTE promises to be a game changer for FirstNet, whether it ultimately is used as a complement or a replacement to LMR systems.