Roundtable Sponsored by
Jumping the hurdles
Once again, a group of
This year’s roundtable in Las Vegas focused on the obstacles facing US public safety
agencies when, or if, they seek to migrate to mobile broadband for mission-critical
voice. Sam Fenwick has the details
critical communications
professionals met
on the sidelines of
IWCE in Las Vegas
to discuss the key issues facing the
North American market. Chaired by
TCCA chief executive Tony Gray,
and sponsored by PowerTrunk, the
participants in this 2019 Critical
Communications Today roundtable were:
Richard Davis, business
development manager, Collins
Aerospace
John Monto, director – radio
technology solutions, Collins
Aerospace
Ken Rehbehn, founder and
principal analyst, CritComm Insights
Neil Horden, chief consultant,
Federal Engineering
Mark Pallans, general manager and
COO, Pallans Associates
Communication Consultants
disappearing from public safety for
another generation. Broadband is
nice to have, it’s a nice adjunct, it’s not
critical communications,” responded
Mark Pallans.
Ken Rehbehn highlighted the
well-known issues with a direct mode
replacement for LTE and also a
business challenge: “We have largescale
system suppliers that also provide
devices and there’s limited motivation
in those companies to transition
handheld devices from the existing
system technologies to an LTE primary
technology because it will end up
reducing demand for base stations on
home technology. Technically there’s
probably no reason why you can’t have
a blended system, it’s all software and
we know the evils that come with that,
but it’s a solvable problem.”
He added that there is therefore a
need for major customers to push the
issue forward and said “it’s not going
to happen in the US in all likelihood
because we’re so fragmented”, and
noted that large government customers
in Europe and Asia might be able
to ‘apply the power of the purse’.
Jose Martin, CEO, PowerTrunk
Keith Rhodes, VP sales, commercial
markets, PowerTrunk
Peter Clemons, founder and
managing director, Quixoticity
Steve Barber, acting CEO, Sepura
Terence Ledger, sales and marketing
director, Sepura
Hannu Aronsson, chair of TCCA’s
applications working group and head
of application technology at Sepura
Harald Ludwig, chairman of
TCCA’s technical forum
Gray kicked off the roundtable
by asking the attendees to consider
FirstNet’s progress and its implications
for the LMR market and what might
happen to the appeal of two-way
radio systems once MCPTT has been
successfully proven.
“I don’t know when the impact will
take place because I don’t see LMR
20 www.criticalcomms.com April 2019
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