Public Safety Radio Interoperability Progress and Issues - Assessment Markets and Technologies

Considerable research was done using the Internet. Information from various Web sites was studied and analyzed; evaluation of publicly available marketing and technical publications was conducted. Telephone conversations and interviews were held with industry analysts, technical experts and executives. In addition to these interviews and primary research, secondary sources were used to develop a more complete mosaic of the market landscape, including industry and trade publications, conferences and seminars.

The overriding objective throughout the work has been to provide valid and relevant information. This has led to a continual review and update of the information content.

This report is important for the government agencies involved in the first response to critical situations. It is necessary for technical departments of such agencies to have a document, which in simple language explains radio technology and architectures of networks supporting public safety radios. They also need to understand the market landscape and who are the major players and their portfolios to select the right equipment.

For vendors of the first response technology, this report provides valuable information on competition. It also supports these vendors with the market assessment.

Existing radio communications systems employed in public safety applications at the present time are a disparate mix of equipment operating at frequencies ranging from 25 MHz to 4.99 GHz and using modes ranging from basic analog FM to VoIP. This has created a frustrating and dangerous problem in that first responders from different organizations are often unable to communicate effectively. Existing solutions to this problem are predominately network-based, which requires prior planning and coordination.

This report addresses Public Safety Communications interoperability progress and problems in North America. It would be unfair to say that nothing was done to insure first responders communications interoperability. The government is spending billions of dollars on research and development in this area; some states have already implemented, or are in the process of implementation of the state-wide PSC networks. Some progress is made in the design of the conceptual view of the national PSC network.

This report addresses technological and marketing trends in the public safety communications interoperability. It emphasizes the progress as well as issues that still exist in the building an interoperability road between public safety agencies radio. This problem is especially serious in the U.S. with its highly decentralized public safety organizations structure.

The report provides a systematic approach to define and analyze interoperability methods.

• IP-based methods
• Standards-P25
• Mesh-based methods
• Satellites
• Private networks
• Radio methods
• SDR.

For all these methods, the report provides technical details, and for some of them it provides also the marketing analysis. The IP group of methods is leading development, though all other methods have multiple benefits as well.

SDR seems like the most possible IP-methods contender, but it will take several years to tell this for sure.

Private networks that can serve first responders attract more and more attention. They can sustain faster development, be more organized and maintainable. There are several service offerings and proposals; to be adapted for public safety communications traffic, such networks should revise some SLAs to make them more stringent.

The report details market and technical development of the P25 standard and shows the phased approach that the industry suggested. Specifics of each phase are stressed. Eventually, in Phase III, the standard will receive (together with TETRA) a global acceptance and it is planned for interoperability; there are many roadblocks in this development, and it is still unclear how the whole industry will support it.

One more method, which is coming from military applications, is to use self-organized, self-reconfigurable and survivable mesh topologies. The report provides details of existing products and outlines benefits of this direction.

Satellites already provide inherently interoperable solutions that can be used as a back-up or the main configuration. Satellites networks can survive in situations when a terrestrial infrastructure is damaged or even destroyed.

Various radio methods (such as patching, cross-band repeaters and other) belong to the traditional ways to achieve first responders' interoperability; they attract by their simplicity and price performance; their limitations, connected with more and more complex network scenarios, raise some questions of their wide acceptance.

The report also provides marketing data for sales of equipment to support North America first responders radios; estimates of the addressable markets for all major interoperability methods are developed as well.