PTT-over-cellular solutions make compelling case for LMR replacement, webinar speakers say
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PTT-over-cellular solutions make compelling case for LMR replacement, webinar speakers say
Trials of mission-critical push-to-talk (MCPTT) services meeting the 3GPP standard are expected to begin next year, but push-to-talk-over-cellular (PoC) solutions have evolved enough during the past year to be considered as an LMR replacement for non-public-safety users, panelists said yesterday during a webinar exploring the topic.
Efforts by wireless carriers and PTT vendors to make PoC solutions more reliable during the past year have made them a viable alternative to LMR networks—and they are available immediately, according to Emil Olbrich, president of the Primelime consulting group, who spoke during a webinar sponsored by Anritsu, Avtec, ESChat and Zetron.
“The PTT [services] offered on wireless networks today are radically different, and this has really happened in the past year—it’s far beyond what has been offered previously,” Olbrich said during the webinar. “The PTT services that are offered now on LTE networks and devices can not only be instantiated, but they can be operated and maintained as a software module as a virtualized function—or a VNF—in the network.
“This is not something that is coming in the future or is a proposed item. It’s actually happening now with live traffic. So, virtualized PTT systems are operating in a cloud-hosted environment serving multiple operators … in the United States and Korea.”
One PoC example is in Fairfax County, Va., which has transitioned its non-public-safety government workers from an analog LMR system—public-safety users still depend on a P25 system for primary communications—to a PoC solution offered by AT&T, according to Michael Newburn, wireless manager for Fairfax County. By moving to the PoC solution, Fairfax County expects to save more than $15 million in upfront costs to build a new LMR network and about $2 million per year in annual operating expenses, he said.
But the key to the move was the fact that Fairfax County officials were comfortable with the coverage and performance of the carrier network, which had been used for eight years to transmit data for the county’s public-safety users, Newburn said.
“That’s the driving factor, obviously,” Newburn said during the webinar. “If you’re going to do any of the push-to-talk services today, you’ve got to have a reliable network to do that.”
Making the decision easier was the fact that the cellular network provides Fairfax County’s general-government users with greater capacity and coverage—particularly indoors—than an LMR system would, as well as the ability to leverage encryption, workforce-management and location-based applications on broadband cellular devices that were purchased previously, Newburn said.
“Our two-way radio system today does only one thing, and that’s push to talk,” he said. “So, it was a natural fit for them [Fairfax County’s general-government employees] to take that same device that they already carry and add push to talk on top of it to give them a full package.”
Oh, how I read this and
Oh, how I read this and wonder where these people come from? I just can’t wait for the first time a storm blows through the fairfax county area and all heck breaks loose. The poc server fails, cells go down, fiber on poles get damaged, and the entire team of dpw is sitting there playing pre loaded word games on their cell phones because the system is down and they can’t talk.
Let’s further this crazy argument. “These” people that have slithered out from under the rocks to tout the digital best codec, best audio quality are insane. Who ever said that analog audio wasn’t the best for voice quality. Why is p25 even being discussed for local government functions? I get it, you want to take advantage of spectrum efficiency and other digital features, but to sacrifice voice quality, maybe not? It was these same people who stood on their soap boxes and said, p25 must be for public safety, must be for interoperability. We all know know that is complete BS, as p25 had little to do with furthering any interop. It was a cleaver and clean way for the manufactures and our friends, the government to forcefully line their pockets. They even went so far as to lobby and push the government to extort public safety users with withholding vital grant monies if equipment purchased wasn’t p25 capable. Oh, how history repeats itself. Please, just go away and leave public safety alone. Go pedal the cell phones to the kiddies.
Anonymousradiousers clearly
Anonymousradiousers clearly has an ax to grid and the facts don’t matter because he/she knows that the facts presented by Fairfax just can’t be real.
Has very little to do with
Has very little to do with “fairfax county” other than they were used in the article. Rather, this is an industry wide trend being pushed by media, sales people, and the industry fat cats to line their pockets with the next big thing. The entire thing is sickening, especially when public safety is being used as the pawn. I have the facts, I have the real world experience. What I lack is the used car salesman sliminess that allows me to fully understand all the underlying motives.
p25 is now a waste of time,
p25 is now a waste of time, most if not all major networks are so integrated with telco networks they are bound to fail, on top of that the hub and spoke technology stacks used are just setting it up to fail more in the event of a major issue.
With First responder they are sick of caring to much oversized, over priced single service crap.,…. your comment ‘Go pedal the cell phones to the kiddies’ just goes to show how out of touch you are.
P25 was a waste of time the
P25 was a waste of time the minute it rolled out to the market.
I am far from out of touch. What is out of touch is private industry colluding with the federal government to build a network that is technically not feasible, and provide coverage that commercial carriers aren’t even willing to or want to provide to charge public safety users to use, but will make the spectrum and system available back to the commercial carriers on devices and technology that doesn’t yet exist, and by the time it does the entire platform will be replaced twice over. All on the taxpayers dime. And I’m out of touch, I don’t think so. Oh, by the way another strong arm by the private industry and government, those frequencies you are currently on, we are gonna take them away from you and force you to go on our system, for a fee of course.
I totally agree. I think most
I totally agree. I think most industry players would be surprised at how many in the PS community would support these sentiments – or they’re too greedy to care.
Im curious, what makes
Im curious, what makes backhaul on a PS network any better than a commercial network? Maybe PS uses microwave but so do commercial networks. Yes commercial networks use fibre, but so does PS – sometimes leased from commercial carriers other times they use their own (purpose built or municipal). Commercial carriers have the expertise to recover their networks quickly – they’re losing millions $$ per day if they go down. For the same reason they have the same level of redundancies built in that PS does – sometimes better.PTT on commercial networks supports QoS so during times of congestion, PTT has a good chance of getting through. PS networks also suffer from congestion during major incidents as users react to the situation. I’m not an advocate of commercial or P25 networks but each has its own benefit and at the end of the day the network you choose is based upon what you can afford. It’s up to the decision makers to determine if the chosen network meets their operational and emergency preparedness requirements.