BK Technologies introduces IntelliPTT tethering via InteropONE app, BKRplay platform

Users of BK Technologies’ BKR 9000 and BKR 5000 portables soon will be able to tether these LMR handsets via Bluetooth with commercial smartphones to support push-to-talk-over-broadband communications through a new BKRplay IntelliPTT feature, the company announced today.

James Teel, general manager of BK Technologies’ SaaS business unit, said BKRplay IntelliPTT adds flexibility to the company’s InteropONE push-to-talk-over-cellular service by allowing it to be initiated by operating an LMR device that may be more comfortable to users when using push-to-talk (PTT) communications.

“We’re essentially utilizing the cell-phone platform as a modem … rather than integrating that piece of hardware into our radio, like some of our competitors have done,” Teel said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “The radio can initiate a push-to-talk call that’s transmitting through the phone over broadband or whatever it is connected to—it could be a LEO satellite or Wi-Fi.”

IntelliPTT could prove to be beneficial in numerous scenarios, including offering a potential way to resolve the longtime LMR challenge of in-building communications, according to Teel.

“This could be an approach for in-building coverage,” he said. “I may not have LMR coverage, but when I’ve got my LMR radio tethered to an InteropONE smartphone, that smartphone could be running over my Wi-Fi network, allowing [the PTT communications] to get out.”

Teel said IntelliPTT will be the first service offered by BK Technologies that leverages the Bluetooth tethering of a portable radio—the BKR 9000 or BKR 5000—and a smartphone running an updated version of InteropONE.

“If you download InteropONE today—the app that’s out in the [app] stores—it knows nothing about how to connect to our radio via Bluetooth,” Teel said. “That’s the new development.

“There are two pieces of it. One is making the InteropONE app work … and, of course, modifying our radio software to work—neither of which are commercially available today.”

BK Technologies plans to complete Beta testing of IntelliPTT during the second quarter of this year—a process that has received more attention than company officials originally anticipated, according to Teel.

“We’ve had a lot of interest,” he said. “We thought we would really have to work hard to get a list of Beta customers that are interested, but it’s been the exact opposite. They’re saying, ‘Tell me when we can do this.’”

Attendees of the IWCE 2024 event in Orlando can learn more about IntelliPTT and other BK Technologies offerings by visiting company representatives in Booth 413 during exhibit-hall hours on March 27-28.