Welcome
JULY 2019
Build it and they
will migrate
Critical Communications Today editor Sam Fenwick highlights the
benefits of starting small when it comes to migrating from LMR to
MCPTT, along with the barriers (in terms of support from the wider
telecommunications sector) that still need to be overcome
One comment that has stuck with me from IWCE is that in the US, the
agency most likely to switch over to MCPTT from LMR will be one
that is forced to do so due to severe financial constraints – a less than
ideal state of affairs if it comes to pass. Over in the UK, while the Home Office has
been working hard to win hearts and minds, there is still much work to be done to
ensure that user organisations have the confidence to migrate over to the Emergency
Services Network (ESN) once it is up and running.
With the above in mind, it is a shame that the industry doesn’t appear to have
considered providing a small island community (with a population in the hundreds
of thousands) with a best-in-class, no-expense-spared MCPTT solution that it might
not be otherwise able to afford. The inevitable technical issues would have less impact
and be more manageable, and the learnings from these could then be applied to larger
projects. Migration from LMR would
also be easier to achieve without having
It is a shame
to worry about interoperability issues
that the industry
with neighbouring agencies. The benefit
doesn’t appear to have
for the vendor(s) would be that such a
considered providing a
reference case would make conversations
with larger and more demanding future
small island community
customers easier – important given the
with a best-in-class
understandable reluctance in the PPDR
MCPTT solution
community to be first with a missioncritical
I am perhaps getting ahead of myself. It is still early days for the technology,
especially as a fully fledged certification process for MCX devices is not yet up and
running (for more on this, see my article on page 13). Part of the issue is the current
lack of support from test and measurement vendors. As Ken Rehbehn pointed out at
this year’s CCW (see our review of the show, which starts on page 23), there are also
issues around the degree of support from chipset vendors, given the implications that
mission-critical features (and others that support them) have for modem and LTE
module design. Speaking of CCW, next year’s event will take place in Madrid and it
just so happens that we have a whole article dedicated to Spain and Portugal’s critical
communication markets on page 10, to give you a taste for the discussions to come.
Hasta la vista!
Sam Fenwick, editor
MISSION STATEMENT
Critical Communications Today
provides the global missioncritical
community with insight
into the latest technology
and best practice required
to ensure that its members
always have access to the
instant, one-to-many wireless
communications that can make
all the difference in moments
of crisis.
We are dedicated to providing
our readers with the knowledge
they need when determining
their critical communications
strategies and procurements,
though delivering up-to-theminute
accurate information on
industry trends, developments,
and deployments, as well as
the latest new products and
services. Our journalists are
committed to easing out the
little details from your peers
that will allow you to draw
on the industry’s collective
experience of deploying and
implementing new projects
and systems.
We work to stimulate and
focus debates on the topics
that matter most and provide
our readers with a means to
raise their concerns and speak
frankly about their work and
the lessons they’ve learned
while delivering the devices and
networks that the world’s blue
light organisations depend on.
technology.
4 www.criticalcomms.com July 2019
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