Wingineering

P25 has been espoused as the be-all, end-all to interoperability. I’m still not sure about that. First, we need to address the human factors involved, like “plain English” or “clear text.” You can read my other posts about that issue. We need to realize that interoperability doesn’t mean that “everybody can talk to everybody else.” While that may or may not be true from a technical perspective, communications discipline must be ensured, and significant incidents need a communications plan. And… let’s face it, there were no “standards” issues when virtually all agencies operated in an analog mode in VHF or UHF. Any two radios, irrespective of manufacturer, could talk together on common channels.

But… as digital technology emerged, some foresight resulted in the P25 standard. Not without controversy, and many aver that the “800 pound gorilla” in the industry drove the standard. Be that as it may (or may not), we have a fairly mature standard today. One of the primary goals of Project 25 was to drive an open standard that multiple manufacturers could use to produce radios, and thus to drive competition.

Some manufacturers build infrastructure for P25, but many do not. Several radio providers focus on subscriber equipment – mobiles and portables only. There is nothing wrong with that, and several offer high-spec, strongly performing radios that meet or exceed the specifications of those made by a certain market-leading company, and these competing radios are much, much cheaper. Several can operate on the trunked networks produced by the infrastructure providers. So, now, user agencies have a real choice in radio selection. However, that very attractive outcome is often precluded by RFPs or other bid specs that mandate “infrastructure and subscriber equipment” only. Some enlightened agencies, and at least a couple of consulting firms, are now issuing RFPs or bid specs that allow vendors to bid infrastructure and subscriber equipment, infrastructure only, or subscriber equipment only.

This approach gives the end customer real choice, and real substantive control over costs. Yes, you might lose the “system integrator” role that gives the customer “one belly button to push” when issues arise, but the customer could still use a third-party integrator or assume that integration themselves. Frankly, when using a different vendor for subscriber equipment that is certified by the trunking provider as compliant with their trunking system, there shouldn’t be an issue arising from “mix and match” infrastructure vs. subscriber equipment.

The public safety community needs to push for these more flexible and open procurement practices. We’ve pushed the vendor community to build to open standards for equipment; we now truly need to take advantage of that standard and what it offers, and to use some “open standards” ourselves when specifying equipment and systems. Only then will we genuinely realize the competitive promise of P25. You might still end up buying both infrastructure and subscriber equipment from the same vendor, but at least through this open practice, it’ll be done as a matter of choice rather than as a default result.

I’d be interested to hear of your experiences in using either of these approaches, and your concerns and reasons for that concern, in separating the procurement for radio infrastructure and subscriber equipment.

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