https://urgentcomm.com/wp-content/themes/ucm_child/assets/images/logo/footer-new-logo.png
  • Home
  • News
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Multimedia
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • Galleries
    • IWCE’s Video Showcase
    • IWCE 2022 Winter Showcase
    • IWCE 2023 Pre-event Guide
  • Commentary
    • Back
    • Commentary
    • Urgent Matters
    • View From The Top
    • All Things IWCE
    • Legal Matters
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Resources
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Reprints & Reuse
  • IWCE
    • Back
    • IWCE
    • Conference
    • Special Events
    • Exhibitor Listings
    • Premier Partners
    • Floor Plan
    • Exhibiting Information
    • Register for IWCE
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Statement
    • Cookie Policy
  • Related Sites
    • Back
    • American City & County
    • IWCE
    • Light Reading
    • IOT World Today
    • Mission Critical Technologies
    • TU-Auto
  • In the field
    • Back
    • In the field
    • Broadband Push-to-X
    • Internet of Things
    • Project 25
    • Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet
    • Virtual/Augmented Reality
    • Land Mobile Radio
    • Long Term Evolution (LTE)
    • Applications
    • Drones/Robots
    • IoT/Smart X
    • Software
    • Subscriber Devices
    • Video
  • Call Center/Command
    • Back
    • Call Center/Command
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • NG911
    • Alerting Systems
    • Analytics
    • Dispatch/Call-taking
    • Incident Command/Situational Awareness
    • Tracking, Monitoring & Control
  • Network Tech
    • Back
    • Network Tech
    • Interoperability
    • LMR 100
    • LMR 200
    • Backhaul
    • Deployables
    • Power
    • Tower & Site
    • Wireless Networks
    • Coverage/Interference
    • Security
    • System Design
    • System Installation
    • System Operation
    • Test & Measurement
  • Operations
    • Back
    • Operations
    • Critical Infrastructure
    • Enterprise
    • Federal Government/Military
    • Public Safety
    • State & Local Government
    • Training
  • Regulations
    • Back
    • Regulations
    • Narrowbanding
    • T-Band
    • Rebanding
    • TV White Spaces
    • None
    • Funding
    • Policy
    • Regional Coordination
    • Standards
  • Organizations
    • Back
    • Organizations
    • AASHTO
    • APCO
    • DHS
    • DMR Association
    • ETA
    • EWA
    • FCC
    • IWCE
    • NASEMSO
    • NATE
    • NXDN Forum
    • NENA
    • NIST/PSCR
    • NPSTC
    • NTIA/FirstNet
    • P25 TIG
    • TETRA + CCA
    • UTC
Urgent Communications
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • News
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • Omdia Crit Comms Circle Podcast
    • Galleries
    • IWCE’s Video Showcase
    • IWCE 2023 Pre-event Guide
    • IWCE 2022 Winter Showcase
  • Commentary
    • Back
    • All Things IWCE
    • Urgent Matters
    • View From The Top
    • Legal Matters
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Reprints & Reuse
    • UC eZines
    • Sponsored content
  • IWCE
    • Back
    • Conference
    • Why Attend
    • Exhibitor Listing
    • Floor Plan
    • Exhibiting Information
    • Join the Event Mailing List
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Cookie Policy
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Statement
  • Related Sites
    • Back
    • American City & County
    • IWCE
    • Light Reading
    • IOT World Today
    • TU-Auto
  • newsletter
  • In the field
    • Back
    • Internet of Things
    • Broadband Push-to-X
    • Project 25
    • Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet
    • Virtual/Augmented Reality
    • Land Mobile Radio
    • Long Term Evolution (LTE)
    • Applications
    • Drones/Robots
    • IoT/Smart X
    • Software
    • Subscriber Devices
    • Video
  • Call Center/Command
    • Back
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • NG911
    • Alerting Systems
    • Analytics
    • Dispatch/Call-taking
    • Incident Command/Situational Awareness
    • Tracking, Monitoring & Control
  • Network Tech
    • Back
    • Cybersecurity
    • Interoperability
    • LMR 100
    • LMR 200
    • Backhaul
    • Deployables
    • Power
    • Tower & Site
    • Wireless Networks
    • Coverage/Interference
    • Security
    • System Design
    • System Installation
    • System Operation
    • Test & Measurement
  • Operations
    • Back
    • Critical Infrastructure
    • Enterprise
    • Federal Government/Military
    • Public Safety
    • State & Local Government
    • Training
  • Regulations
    • Back
    • Narrowbanding
    • T-Band
    • Rebanding
    • TV White Spaces
    • None
    • Funding
    • Policy
    • Regional Coordination
    • Standards
  • Organizations
    • Back
    • AASHTO
    • APCO
    • DHS
    • DMR Association
    • ETA
    • EWA
    • FCC
    • IWCE
    • NASEMSO
    • NATE
    • NXDN Forum
    • NENA
    • NIST/PSCR
    • NPSTC
    • NTIA/FirstNet
    • P25 TIG
    • TETRA + CCA
    • UTC
acc.com

Urgent Matters


Dramatic changes in LTE landscape bust myths, provide FirstNet with new options

  • Written by Donny Jackson
  • 8th January 2015
The commercial wireless industry has experienced a remarkable amount of change in recent years with the deployment of LTE and other technologies, shattering many long-held assumptions about the industry. The impact of these changes seem certain to impact FirstNet officials as key decision are made this year.

What is in this article?

  • Dramatic changes in LTE landscape bust myths, provide FirstNet with new options
  • Dramatic changes in LTE landscape bust myths, provide FirstNet with new options

Dramatic changes in LTE landscape bust myths, provide FirstNet with new options

“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Those famous words from Dorothy to her dog Toto—after Dorothy believes the two of them were swept away by a cyclone—marked the beginning of an adventurous journey through a fantastical world that bore little resemblance to her simple hometown in the The Wizard of Oz.

Frankly, I hadn’t given this classic story a second thought since seeing the prequel Wicked on stage more than a decade ago. But this single line has been crossing my mind repeatedly since attending the LTE North America show in Dallas several weeks ago, when I—like Dorothy upon entering Oz—was overwhelmed by the remarkable amount of change that the commercial wireless world is experiencing and how many long-held assumptions about the cutthroat industry have been destroyed during the past few years.

Some of the myths that have been shattered include:

Carriers won’t share network infrastructure with competitors: Wireless service providers stopped owning their own towers a long time ago (companies like American Tower and Crown Castle now dominate the space), but they generally maintained separate antenna systems on towers and a similar approach was taken indoors, as well. That’s not the case anymore.

At LTE North America, the indoor-coverage discussion centered on how to implement neutral-host distributed antenna systems (DAS), not whether it was a good idea. And there was a growing sentiment at the show that shared outdoor infrastructure could become more common in the U.S. in the future, based on the success seen with that model in the United Kingdom. Can mutually beneficial sharing arrangements be reached with public safety, particularly in terms of indoor coverage?

Carriers want customers to use their networks exclusively, because that’s how they can charge them an make money: For years, public-safety representatives cited this argument as the reason carriers would not support the development of standards for peer-to-peer communications, which is a staple in the LMR world.

But the reality in today’s world is that the public’s seemingly insatiable appetite for bandwidth has carriers looking to offload traffic from their networks whenever possible, because they know that they can’t build networks fast enough to keep up with consumers’ demands. In fact, discussions of 5G—expected as early as 2020—indicate that it is not as much a new technology as it is an integration of existing communications systems, including LTE and Wi-Fi.

A single device can only support a limited number of bands and protocols: It wasn’t that long ago that multiband devices were considered an engineering marvel, with some questioning whether having a device work in more than three bands was feasible. But today’s smartphones support an amazing number of bands, multiple generations of cellular technologies and the “table stakes” capabilities of Bluetooth, satellite location and near-field communication.

In short, if there is an economic case for including functionality in a device, it seems like the technological hurdles to do so can be cleared.

LTE is good for data, but not voice: In just a few short years, LTE has transformed the way people consume data, but voice was not part of the standard initially. Today, consumer-grade high-definition (HD) voice over LTE is being rolled out by carriers throughout the world, and initial audio-quality tests are yielding impressive results. We’re still a year or two from having standard for mission-critical voice over LTE, but its arrival could be transformational to first responders, if the audio quality can be maintained when devices operate in peer-to-peer mode.

1 | 2 |
Dramatic changes in LTE landscape bust myths, provide FirstNet with new options
Tags: Commercial Public Safety Commentary Coverage/Interference Long Term Evolution (LTE) NTIA/FirstNet Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet System Design Urgent Matters Commentary

Related Content

Commentary


Updated: How ‘sidelink’ peer-to-peer communications can enhance public-safety operations

  • 1
27th February 2023

NG911 needed to secure our communities and nation

24th February 2023

How 5G is making cities safer, smarter, and more efficient

26th January 2023
view all

Events


UC Ezines


IWCE 2019 Wrap Up

13th May 2019
view all

Twitter


UrgentComm

Siyata to showcase new PTT device with body camera during IWCE 2023 dlvr.it/SlL0mS

23rd March 2023
UrgentComm

Airbus U.S.: Rebecca Purcell, Bob Baumann discuss MCX, Agnet offerings dlvr.it/SlJNqW

22nd March 2023
UrgentComm

Microsoft Outlook vulnerability could be 2023’s ‘It’ bug dlvr.it/SlC3Hh

20th March 2023
UrgentComm

Getting to know the how–and why–of the telecom cloud dlvr.it/SlBbD1

20th March 2023
UrgentComm

Zipline delivery drone docks, charges by itself dlvr.it/SlBNWy

20th March 2023
UrgentComm

State and local leaders can alleviate the burden on public-safety personnel by tackling three workforce trends dlvr.it/SlBH89

20th March 2023
UrgentComm

6G is shaping up to disappoint, and the industry can blame itself dlvr.it/Sl918J

20th March 2023
UrgentComm

Change is coming to the network detection and response (NDR) market dlvr.it/Sl4cts

18th March 2023

Newsletter

Sign up for UrgentComm’s newsletters to receive regular news and information updates about Communications and Technology.

Expert Commentary

Learn from experts about the latest technology in automation, machine-learning, big data and cybersecurity.

Business Media

Find the latest videos and media from the market leaders.

Media Kit and Advertising

Want to reach our digital and print audiences? Learn more here.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • American City & County
  • IWCE
  • Light Reading
  • IOT World Today
  • Mission Critical Technologies
  • TU-Auto

WORKING WITH US

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Events
  • Careers

FOLLOW Urgent Comms ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2023 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.