ESChat, JPS announce solution to ease interoperable PTT deployments, enhance security

ESChat and JPS Interoperability Solutions today announced that the JPS Z-Series platform soon will communicate natively with the ESChat push-to-talk (PTT) platform, which is expected to streamline gateway deployments and bolster security to meet the needs of the ESChat FedRAMP platform later this year.

ESChat CEO Josh Lober said officials for JPS and ESChat have been wanting to introduce this functionality for a long time via the integration of ESChat’s Linux SDK into the Z-Series platform, because it makes it easier for first-responder groups to use the gateway and enhances encryption capabilities.

“It really streamlines the deployment model, while—at the same time—it’s adding features,” Lober said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications.

Radio over IP (RoIP) interoperability has long been a hallmark for JPS, but gateway deployments historically have needed a static IP address that often requires the involvement of an agency’s oft-busy IT team—something that can introduce significant extra time, Lober said. In addition, traffic between the ESChat server and the gateway has been unencrypted, requiring the extra cost of a VPN to conform with some users’ security policies, he said.

“That [VPN cost] is what we’re trying to alleviate, and by JPS integrating the SDK, that’s done that,” Lober said. “It’s pretty much a plug-and-play experience with the new software, because the JPS gateway now becomes an ESChat client. And, as an ESChat client, it’s no longer using the RoIP protocols—it’s using the ESChat protocols, which are encrypted. Therefore, all communication between the gateway and the server is now encrypted, without a VPN. So, the customer saves that [VPN] cost.

“And, because the client has the SDK, it no longer requires a static IP address, and it no longer requires the IT team to do any management of it at all. Just plug it into the wall, put in the ESChat activation code and configure it to talk to whomever you want.”

JPS Interoperability Solutions President Todd Dixon echoed this sentiment.

“JPS is always looking for ways to achieve a first-class customer experience, and this direct ESChat integration will give our customers a simplified setup, as well as the ability to take advantage of our new hardware capabilities,” Dixon said in a prepared statement. “Saving our customers money by eliminating the need for VPNs and static public IPs is even more good news, and goes to our goal of avoiding recurring fees.”

This new gateway solution will be available next month on all JPS RSP-Z2 gateways, and it will be available on all ACU-21 gateways in the third quarter, according to a press announcement released today by the companies.

“If they’re already running Z-Series gateways, those gateways support all of these features with a free software upgrade,” Lober said.

Such upgrades will be necessary for ESChat’s public-safety customers making the migration to the FedRAMP environment later this year, according to Lober.

“We can’t do VPNs in our FedRAMP environment, and we certainly cannot do client RoIP connections into our FedRAMP environment,” he said. “The project with JPS is a critical element to our FedRAMP migration, which we anticipate happening in Q3.

“It’s mandatory for all of public safety operating in our GovCloud environment—we have to move every one of them into the FedRAMP environment. It’s not a choice for them, so it affects hundreds of public-safety agencies.”

Roman Kaluta, director of business development and public-safety liaison for JPS Interoperability Solutions, noted that non-public-safety customers—and public-safety users who do not plan to migrate to the ESChat FedRAMP platform—will continue to have a choice what type of firmware they want in their JPS gateways.

“It’s important to note that those customers that choose to continue to just use the JPS-ESChat RoIP link that they have right now, they’ll be unaffected by this, as long as they want to continue with their configurations in that manner—it’s not going away,” Kaluta said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “It will need to go away to meet the FedRAMP requirements, but we have other customers … that don’t mind running it over a RoIP connection, using a non-Z-Series gateway.

“Nobody’s going to be forced to do anything that is not required by FedRAMP or StateRAMP certifications.”