The Role of Public-Safety Standards in a Broadband Era

Coordination among standards development organizations (SDOs) needs to occur to ensure clarity, transparency and consistency in the development of public-safety communications standards, according to attendees at the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) annual conference in Washington, D.C. the week of Oct. 7.

The conference theme was “The Future of the Network,” and TIA held a series of workshops built around this theme prior to the conference. The future of public-safety communications was considered through panel sessions and individual presentations covering the history of U.S. public-safety wireless communications, the role of the TIA TR8 Committee in the evolution of the Project 25 (P25) standard and the future direction of the standard relative to new broadband technologies.

Key outcomes from the workshop recognized that P25 is a mature global LMR standard and that investment by end users in networks and equipment is continuing. P25 has a large amount of corporate knowledge built from more than 20 years that must be maintained and remain accessible to and used by the public-safety community. Greater emphasis needs to be placed on marketing P25 as a global standard in emerging markets.

Mission-critical LMR voice will continue to perform a key role in public-safety communications for the foreseeable future, and the development of mission-critical Long Term Evolution (LTE) standards for broadband technologies is essential, as is interoperability with existing LMR networks. It was also recognized that SDOs must coordinate open, research and evidence-based global communications standards that provide interoperability to the benefit of the global public-safety community.

Please click here to read the full article