LMR systems will remain for a decade, even with national emergency broadband net plans

Even though a national interoperable wireless network is coming for the nation’s first responders, they will have to make do with current land mobile radio systems for the next 10 years, said a government study.

President Obama signed legislation on Feb. 22 that would grant precious 700 MHz “D-block” spectrum to emergency responders for their exclusive use, as well as the money to build a national network. However, the same day, the Government Accountability Office issued a report saying that the new network, 10 years off, might only offer a partial solution and that emergency responders would have to rely on their legacy Land Mobile Radios for some time to come.

“Multiple federal entities are involved with planning a public safety broadband network and while such a network would likely enhance interoperability and increase data transfer rates, it would not support mission critical voice capabilities for years to come, perhaps even 10 years or more,” said GAO.

It warned the new network, although extremely capable in supporting video and data applications in incident response, might not be able to support critical voice applications adequately at first.

The nationwide network’s proposed supporting technology  --  3GPP Long Term Evolution, usually referred to as LTE  --  is aimed at supporting high-speed data for mobile phones and data terminals. LTE supports voice, but routes those calls in a different manner on separate network facilities, which means voice communications might be more complicated to provide on the emergency responder network.

GAO said SMR radios will have to fill in. “Yet because the technology standard for the proposed broadband network does not support mission critical voice capabilities, first responders will continue to rely on their current LMR systems for the foreseeable future. Thus, a broadband network would supplement, rather than replace, current public safety communication systems,” it said.

It said, however, that SMR capabilities have improved considerably after significant investment, from billions in federal grants and an injection of 100 Mhz of radio spectrum, but interoperability among varying emergency responder systems “remains a distant goal.”

It said the entity established by the new law could manage more interoperable mission critical SMR voice capabilities. The new law that establishes the network also established a new entity, the First Responder Network Authority (FRNA), responsible for ensuring the establishment of a nationwide, interoperable public safety broadband network. FRNA is to operate under the National Telecommunications and Industry Administration.

Source: gsnmagazine