The issue here is one of sheer ignorance regarding 2 way radio. Most people have no clue that their cell phone is in ct a two radio !! Somewhere along the evolution of consumer cellphone technology the term &8220;wireless&8221; came into being. Now get it straight &8211; &8220;wireless&8221; = &8220;RADIO&8221; !! (one in which you can talk and listen at the same time).
The comment that P25 was solely designed to and actually does make maximum use of limited frequencies is a complete misnomer! P25 phase 1 is no more spectrally efficient than 12.5Khz NBFM. Sure P25 phase 2 may offer spectrum efficiency gains, but that will be another several Billion dollars, another 10 years down the track and only after all current radio equipment is deemed obsolete. Fact is that NBFM (yes, there is analogue trunking too) also fulfills the federal governments current &8216;Narrowbanding&8217; mandate and some agencies could migrate across to NBFM at minimum cost. The next &8216;Narrowbanding&8217; mandate to 6.25Khz channeling won&8217;t occur for another 20 years at the earliest. I stand by my original argument that digital LMR radio has hampered interoperability between agencies! Funny isn&8217;t it that civil aviation still uses AM modulation and there we have one &8216;standard&8217; that still works in every country across the world.. P25 is but one &8216;standard&8217; for voice and data LMR communications. There are several others and likely many more to be developed in coming years. My gut feeling is that if there were another 911 type event (god forbid), that agencies would actually have more communications problems today than they did over 10 years ago. But, what would I know&8230;?
What a joke!
The &8220;analog&8221; radio technology mentioned is certainly viable. &8220;Digital P25&8243; was designed to make maxium use of LIMITED resources (frequencies &8211; ie. &8216;channels&8217;). So vendors responded by introducing &8220;trunking&8221; (where a computer assigns radio channels automatically to users). Then the federal government mandated users migrate to a smaller &8220;slice&8221; of the available channels so that more users could be accomdated. It just turns out that &8220;digital P25 trunking&8221; is more efficient usage of those limited resources. The vendors can&8217;t be ulted for responding to evolving needs that were given to them by the government.
The one thing that can be guaranteed though from all of this is that the likes of Motorola, Harris, DVSI and others stand to reap Billions and Billions of dollars from the US taxpayer in the guise of critical future communications &8216;technology improvements&8217;.
However the bigger problem is one of &8220;turf&8221;. The agencies using these systems are reluctant to surrender control of their own radio system (which is understandable). Then you have small town agencies that cannot afford the multi million dollar technology.
Network project After $350 million, law enforcement wireless network success still “doubtful”,By Pierre Thomas, Jack Cloherty and Jason Ryan
Analogue FM radio was the lowest common denominator for voice communications for decades. It was , cheap, effective and user friendly. In addition FM did/does not suffer the same audio distortion and articts that digital radios are notorious for. The only mandate was that two radios (of any make or model) had to have the same channels/frequencies programmed into them and they could then communicate. Today, for two digital radios to communicate, they have to:
When will people realize that the biggest hurdle to fully interoperable radio communications is the very technology that APCO and others developed for the task. There is no and likely never will be, one single digital radio &8216;Standard&8217;. In North America for example, P25 was supposed to be the radio communications panacea. Twelve years down the track though, P25 is still evolving! It now looks as though there will be at least two P25 &8216;standards&8217;. New P25 &8216;phases&8217; are being developed at the rate of one every ten years. &8216;Old&8217; phase 1 P25 digital radios being sold to unsuspecting agencies today, will unlikely be compatible with the newer phase 2 standards currently being developed out by the big radio vendors.. In addition to the difficulties posed by various non-compatible modulation standards and trunking systems, digital encryption techniques also continue to evolve and are becoming increasingly sophisticated. In the grand scheme of things however, encryption of any type on a digital radio network potentially adds additional complexity and another firewall between different agency radio networks, hindering interoperability further.
Be on the same frequency or trunking network (this may mandate a certain radio brand or may require a radio to first be registered onto the network to permit access), Use the same digital modulation scheme (P25 phase 1, P25 phase 2, DMR, Tetra etc etc etc), potentially have an encryption option installed & also have the same encryption key programmed in!
&8220;Hackers&8221; ????? hmmmppfff ! puhleeeeze&8230; stop with the sensationalizing. You have a better chance of winning the lottery then a &8220;hacker&8221; doing something beyond being a nuisance by perhaps transmitting on a stolen radio (that the new technology would allow to be remotely disabled anyway).
Mitt Romney&8217;s Offshore Millions, Keystone Iced, SCOTUS Warrior and Eating Like the 99 Percent (The PM Note)
The irony with the entire situation is, the vendors of these multi milliion dollar systems also make interoperability gateways to connect everyone together. No agencies want to Network project After $350 million, law enforcement wireless network success still “duse the product.
Mitt Romney&8217;s Offshore Millions, Keystone Iced, SCOTUS Warrior and Eating Like the 99 Percent (The PM Note)
A new report from the Justice Department&8217;s Inspector General finds DOJ has spent $350 million on developing an integrated wireless network that has &8220;yet to achieve the results intended,&8221; and that after 10 years of trying &8220;its success is doubtful.&8221; This stunning assessment comes a decade after the 9-11 tragedy highlighted a lack of coordination and effective communication between law enforcement and first responders, and spurred a commitment to fix the problem. But according to the DOJ audit, serious communications problems still plague the FBI, DEA and other federal law enforcement agencies. For example, the audit found that the Justice Department&8217;s law enforcement components are still using old and obsolete equipment. The audit further determined that many of the Department&8217;s radios do not meet some or all of the intended requirements, including limited interoperability between the Department&8217;s components and other law enforcement agencies. The Justice Department&8217;s wireless equipment is not even synched up with the Department of Homeland Security&8217;s network. Moreover, the continued use of &8220;legacy,&8221; or outdated, equipment does not meet security encryption requirements, and leaves communication channels open to the threat of being hacked. The bottom line: should there be some large scale catastrophic event, like 9-11, there are still serious questions as to how effectively federal law enforcement agencies will be able to communicate with each other.
In a letter to the Inspector General&8217;s office, &160;Assistant Attorney General for Administration Lee Lofthus responded: &8220;The original&8230; objective was a nationwide interoperable broadband voice and data network servicing the Departments of Justice, Treasury and Homeland Security with an estimated total cost of Network project$5 billion. However. as the report acknowledges, changing circumstances have required the Department to significantly change the scope and deployment approaches for the IWN program. What has not changed is the Department&8217;s commitment to implementing a reliable, secure. interoperable Land Mobile Radio system for its tactical wireless communications. Despite the challenges to the project noted in the Report, the Department has achieved significant improvements in the wireless communications capabilities delivered to our law enforcement agents.&8221;
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