UK seeks to replace TETRA with LTE as early as 2016

[cartman]

http://urgentcomm.com/tetra/uk-seeks-re ... early-2016

"Official says cost, not performance is the issue, and calls TETRA "extremely expensive" compared with the per-minute costs of commercial wireless air time"

Other references
http://www.policespecials.com/forum/ind ... -replaced/

http://www.pscr.gov/projects/broadband/ ... -ESMCP.pdf

[techman]

This will be interesting and maybe a game changer for the incumbent suppliers of public safety radios, public safety running around using hardened iphones! or similar connected to mobile phone network with a high access to the network which assigns slots to public safety over normal users. We are seeing police moving towards tablets and smart phones now to access data more quickly than over the radio talking to dispatch.

This is making more sense to why telstra is wanting to make a play for an Australia wide LTE network managed by them for public saftey

[Bigfella237]

I read somewhere recently that the Motorola APX family will be getting an LTE option in the near future, not sure of the details (I assume it's something to do with the radio acting as a data modem) but I wouldn't be surprised if the TRBO line follows suit, at least for the European market, they seem to get options that we don't (like AES)?

Andrew

[cartman]

I cant see the NSW Police force ever moving away from P25 in the foreseeable future, given the amount of investment in the metro and country areas. So sticking to the APX with LTE options would make sense. Somebody suggested to me that if and when the NSW Police move to P25 trunking only the control channel will be on the GRN band with the voice frequencies remaining on the 468Mhz band.

[citabria]

seem to get options that we don't (like AES)?

You took the words right out of my post

[news]

seem to get options that we don't (like AES)?

You took the words right out of my post

AES for TRBO was available to order months ago if you have a MOL Asia Pacific dealer account however; they have not updated the price listing with what it will cost(price list is over a year old). If they approve it another question......

[techman]

I cant see the NSW Police force ever moving away from P25 in the foreseeable future, given the amount of investment in the metro and country areas. So sticking to the APX with LTE options would make sense. Somebody suggested to me that if and when the NSW Police move to P25 trunking only the control channel will be on the GRN band with the voice frequencies remaining on the 468Mhz band.

UK's issue is expiring contracts, escalating costs, lack of functionality and they are wanting to more with a new mainline technology moving forward, this is what I read from the ppt and other sites. Do I see UK bolting an apx radio onto the chest of the cops - nope it would be like them carrying around a house brick on there chest when compared to the tetra radios they have been using today and may not carry the options they want or are looking for.

Also the UK may not accept the Motorola flavored version of apx with lte, there is tetra crowd have been working on solutions for a number of years too - don't know if they will be willing to push the boundaries and drive new technology but it will be interesting to see there strategic direction.

As for NSW and rest of Australia, we will continue to follow US in the short term but there are already discussions out there public safety wants more technology to help them, they have spectrum assigned to them as part of the analog/digital tv changeover now they need a plan on what they want to achieve.

[Scotty]

UK's issue is expiring contracts, escalating costs, lack of functionality and they are wanting to more with a new mainline technology moving forward, this is what I read from the ppt and other sites. Do I see UK bolting an apx radio onto the chest of the cops - nope it would be like them carrying around a house brick on there chest when compared to the tetra radios they have been using today and may not carry the options they want or are looking for.

I reckon the functionality of TETRA for the end user runs rings around other digital modes flavoured by ESO's such as trunked P25, so I don't see that as an issue. The cost of running the system that the UK has seems to be the main issue.

The UK would be better off running access fees in a similar way as the GRN (now administered by Airwave) do here in NSW. Seems crazy that services are still paying for each TX on a radio...

[news]

I reckon the functionality of TETRA for the end user runs rings around other digital modes flavoured by ESO's such as trunked P25, so I don't see that as an issue.

What functionality is that ?

I have used both conventional and trunked TETRA gear for years and it's nothing special...

[Scotty]

What functionality is that ?

I have used both conventional and trunked TETRA gear for years and it's nothing special...

For the UK cops, that functionality includes:
- small, light hand-held units
- ability to call/talk to all users, groups of users or individuals only
- full-duplex phone calls
- ability to send images/pictures to radios