Cash-strapped public-safety agencies adopting non-P25 technologies with increasing frequency, NPSTC says
What is in this article?
Cash-strapped public-safety agencies adopting non-P25 technologies with increasing frequency, NPSTC says
An increasing number of public-safety agencies—particularly those with smaller budgets and/or located in rural areas—are opting for land-mobile-radio technologies other than P25, according to John Lenihan, chairman of the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council (NPSTC) interoperability committee.
During last week’s NPSTC meeting, Lenihan said the interoperability working group is “following the increased use of non-P25 digital formats” by public-safety agencies that cannot afford to buy P25 systems and subscriber radios.
“It just seems to be that, as grant money dries up, there’s no longer federal money for subscriber units,” Lenihan said during the NPSTC meeting. “Especially the small agencies and rural agencies are opting for less-expensive versions of radios that meet their day-to-day needs. The obvious problem with that is going to be interoperability.”
In the United States, the public-safety community has designated P25 as its land-mobile-radio (LMR) standard in an effort to enable interoperability and—eventually—lower prices for the network infrastructure and subscriber equipment.
To help support the interoperability goal, many federal grants for public-safety communications—relatively plentiful in the years following the 9/11 terrorist attacks—stipulated that agencies building new radio systems must build a P25 system to qualify for grant funding. But federal grants to fund public-safety LMR systems have decreased through during the past decade, particularly after the global economic crisis of 2008 and the decision to fund the FirstNet nationwide public-safety broadband network (NPSBN).
Without federal funding and a P25 mandate, a growing number of public-safety agencies are opting to use other digital LMR technologies rather than P25, which typically is significantly more expensive, Lenihan said.
“It’s especially prevalent in smaller departments in rural areas that did not take advantage of grant programs,” Lenihan said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “What we’re hearing is that the sales people at radio manufacturers are showing them [public-safety agencies] their inexpensive models and saying, ‘Why are you spending this money [for P25]? It’s coming out of your pocket.’ There’s no grant money available now for subscriber units; we pretty much cut that off a number of years ago.
“So, when [funding] is coming out of your pocket—just like it is with airline seats—people tend to gravitate toward the cheaper without necessary consideration for the consequences.”
Clearly, the manufacturers
Clearly, the manufacturers have created a situation where their product is so expensive, that only with federal funding can it be reasonably purchased. The reason for this is the availability of federal funding. Years ago, manufacturers had to make and sell radios at a price that a county sheriff office could afford. Now they can charge what they want and the government will often make up the difference. Now, P25 users are painted into a corner. of not being able to afford their own radio systems. Big Govt strikes again!
Amen. Industry, in the radio
Amen. Industry, in the radio world, dictates the market. Narrow-banding, digital formats, etc. It should be the other way around. Don’t blame the users for rebelling where they can. Narrow-banding was the worst thing that’s happened to LMR. It may have been needed in coastal states or high population areas, but in the other 70 percent of the country, it should have been implemented on an as-needed basis or ignored altogether. In middle America, their aren’t enough LMR systems/users to warrant it. Had our elected officials stood up for us, instead of being in the pockets of special interests, the situation everyone is in would be just a bad dream.
If you look at the big radio
If you look at the big radio manufacturers websites, you can tell that utilities, like I work for as a consultant, have been totally forgotten. They don’t get the big public safety bucks, so forget about them. Gone are the days when a company like that was happy to sell you a new repeater or a few mobiles. Now if its not a multimillion dollar federally backed purchase with a big support contract to go with it, you just hear “Click-Dialtone”!!!
The equipment is surely too
The equipment is surely too expensive and then the Mfg’s discount it on state contract or GSA to the point that the local dealers (the few of us that are left that do all the actual grunt work everyday with public safety agencies) make such a small profit it is often not worth pursuing. And have you tried to program P25 radios? It is a night mare – they are loaded with dozens of zones with 100’s of talk groups that the local suburban or rural volunteer firefighter would struggle to use even in the extremely rare incident of a “wide area responder” event. The feds, the states, and biggest cities have forced a standard (under mother Moto’s direction via APCO) that the rest of the “fly over” country can’t live with – all at tax payer expense. And now we are seeing that they can’t even afford to maintain what they already built out without more and more local fees / taxes added to our home owners and businesses. As we start to move public safety to PoC on LTE with FirstNet and Verizon, etc., the LMR side will slowly dissolve as agencies simply refuse to replace their broken or old P25 radios. Today you could buy 2 brand new NXDN/DMR digital radios for the the cost of repairing a single P25 unit. Back when “interoperability” was the big buzz word, with very good intentions, little did we recognize it was really just a new sales and marketing program. In real life the P25 interop standard is still much more myth than fact. The die is cast and “P25” will be the answer to a trivia question in 20 years.
One reason for the high cost
One reason for the high cost barrier in the universal adaption of P25 technology is directly related to how the funding and money has flowed in this process. There are many successful models, worldwide, of how a common digital platform/protocol was implemented as a “national standard” and is in the hands of almost all agencies. These involved much more involvement of a centralized funding and standards source. The bulky approach of how this has been attempted in the US is really a good example of a worst-case, only because the funding for these systems was generally scattered, inconsistent and unreliable.
To understand the reason for the high cost of the infrastructure / subscribers it really goes back to how the recovery of the appropriate development and minimal revenue costs are being obtained. With P25 systems this is mostly through equipment and subscriber sales and not through federal support directly to R&D for the manufacturers participating in supporting this standard.
The missing link on this was really a stronger bond between the funding sources, in this case they are federal and big city resources and the manufacturer. Very little went into the initial investment of the development of the public safety grade equipment to offset the costs, so the result was and still is a high cost to the end users. As it stands now, development and research costs are still placed back into the manufacturers hands with revenue to pay for this coming from sales.
I would propose that a shortcut to the funding sources is found, so that the middle points that handle the funding are reduced or eliminated so that the funding can make a more direct route to the manufacturers doing the work. Each layer now adds additional costs, including the government agencies handling the funding.
Would it make sense to structure a NASA type organization to address digitally trunked Public Safety LMR communications services using P25 and managing funding past this point, if P25 is really the digital trunking system standard that Public Safety wants to fully adopt (not wholesale replacing other LMR’s but as a selective resource to use for applicable interoperability)? Isn’t this what we are doing with FirstNet? Since voice communication standards/services are still a way off for FirstNet, do we need a stronger supported to attempt to standardize the use of P25, and find a way to make it a more affordable system, that are only being obtained from tax based resources? Maybe minimizing the number of hands handling the funding and taking off a group or two that are really doing nothing more than making sure the bucks get passed around will help get the costs down.
$8000.00 for a portable radio is really a hard thing to swallow and justify for supporting reliable, safe communication models, especially when the direct replacement for a broken subscriber is in the hundreds of dollars.
As one who has just been
As one who has just been introduced to LMR and P25 networks for less than a year, I have come to understand understand some of the cost associated with both the subscriber and network equipment. My hope is that the both the P-25 and LTE technology can find a happy medium in which to co-exist. Most of my background has been working with carrier networks with a deep understanding of both PoC and legacy PTT systems.
Larger cities are working with surrounding municipalities to help reduce some of the expenses and at the same time boost their networks for the time being. Eventually the benefits of operating a highly adaptable LTE network will be realized. Not just with reliable voice communications, but with cost savings in day to day operations and a more robust network with more nodes that should overlap if one fails.
Cash flow models for all public safety equipment makers will find that the market has gotten a lot larger with the introduction of a national player. It will be interesting to see the results in ten to fifteen years.