MissionCritical Communications, Radio Resource International, and Public Safety Report - wireless voice and data communications for mobile, remote and public safety operations

Share |

Motorola Outlines Strategy for Next-Generation Public Safety (5/18/10)
By Lindsay A. Gross
The enterprise mobility solutions (EMS) business of Motorola, which company officials plan to break into an independent, publicly traded company in 2011, unveiled its plan at a Motorola press event Monday for delivering advanced communications to public-safety agencies in the United States. Motorola’s next generation of public-safety solutions will maximize operational effectiveness by converging voice, image, data and video communications from a multimedia, integrated command center and extend the reach of current mission-critical communications networks. The technology will connect critical resources across agencies and jurisdictions and between mission-critical two-way and broadband networks, company officials said.

Gene Delaney, president of EMS recognized that there are challenges in evolving to the next generation. The two main challenges are available funding and spectrum. Therefore, to keep public-safety migrations cost effective, Motorola’s strategy will build on existing Motorola architecture, Delaney said. “We recognize that money spent on public safety has to last a long time and that agencies will most likely have to upgrade in stages. With these plans, we will be taking the existing pieces already in place and building on them,” Delaney said.

Most of the broadband applications that will be involved in the next generation of public safety will take bandwidth. “Motorola is trying to do its part by making products that are spectrally efficient, but the government has to do its part and provide spectrum,” Delaney said. Greg Brown, Motorola’s co-CEO and CEO of EMS and networks, said that the D block at 700 MHz should be given directly to public safety and not auctioned. When asked if Motorola has plans to publicly back public safety owning the D block with Congress, Brown said, “Our customers are making that case for us; Motorola doesn’t see the need as a company to reinforce their effort at the congressional level … yet.

“We know the challenges are becoming increasingly complex and our customers must do more with less, which is why they need to find greater value in their technology investments,” Brown said. To that end, the company has outlined the following six key areas of innovation:

• Interoperability solutions to connect critical resources across agencies and jurisdictions, link private and public nonmission-critical networks, and bridge two-way radio systems with emerging mobile broadband networks;

• Integrated command to enable radio consoles and CAD systems in command centers to converge voice, data, records and video;

• Video security to provide situational awareness for officers in the field;

• Advanced devices pairing two-way radios with multimedia data devices that are easy to use in stressful situations; and

• Workforce mobility through streamlined applications and processes to support day-to-day operations and incident and disaster management.

Your comments are welcome, click here.