Wouldn’t it be nice to have our cake and eat it too? For many of us that would mean using our smartphones as our LMR subscribers, without compromising too many of the LMR features and the coverage that we demand from our public safety radio systems. The commercial vendors have recognized this requirement and has responded over the past year with a plethora of new products. Harris’ BeOn, Raytheon is partnering with Twisted Pair on the latter’s WAVE solution, MutualLink has reinvented itself once again with a similar platform, Cisco’s venerable IPCS system, AT&T’s ePTT service, Verizon’s Security Chat are all capable of fulfilling the growing niche market of apps for LMR via smartphones. I have assumed the lead role in studying all of these and more for my employer and learn more every week. These apps are not intended to supplant the mission-critical LMRs that public safety agencies use but are a perfect solution for other agencies, particularly those that want or need to avoid the expense of acquiring and maintaining expensive LMR subscribers, or for executives who may have assigned LMRs but under normal circumstances, would much rather just use their smartphone. There are indeed drawbacks to the use of apps as well, most significantly the inability to prioritize a PTT over any other commercial cell user, dependency on cellular infrastructure, but also coverage, and the relatively rapid battery depletion of the smaller cell phones. That said, in the right hands, a well-designed smartphone-to-LMR platform quickly becomes an asset for a great many government officials, especially when they are travelling outside of their LMR footprint and need to stay in touch. Consider exploring your options carefully and ensure that your agency has the right mix of engineering, IT and operations staff to work as your team in implementing one of the above mentioned platforms. They will pay for themselves quickly and enhance interoperability immensely. Take it from an LMR guy.
