Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Why use P25 now?

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 01:51:37 -0400

------- Original Message --------
   From: "Leonard Goodnow" <[email-masked]>
Subject:  Why use P25 now?

To the Group:

First, thank you for all your replies about cell phone verses P25 technology and
operation.  Your answers like the one below pretty much confirmed my gut
feelings.  It is too bad the costs are just so high and cannot be made a happy
medium somewhere between the two extremes.

I have another tough question for the group.  Why should we (our mutual aid
system) buy a P25 system at the current 12.5 KHz. technology when I just know that
in the next five to ten years the FCC is going to mandate that everyone migrate to
6.25 KHz. technologies?  Why invest millions of dollars in new equipment that is
going to become obsolete in a few years?

Perhaps the police have a major need for digital technology with its encryption
and data capabilities, but fire and EMS services can get along quite nicely with
conventional analog technologies.  In our rural area, fire and EMS personnel are
almost exclusively dispatched by simple tone and voice pagers.  These pagers are
the backbone of our notification system.  They not only notify the responders, but
allow them to monitor the situation in real time to tailor the nature of their
response (like whether they should respond directly to the scene or to respond to
the station to pick up response equipment for example).  This need is virtually
ignored by current P25 equipment.  I don’t see buying 25 bulky $3,000 portables
per department times 77 departments in our mutual aid system as a viable option to
simple tone and voice pagers.

Does anyone see any reason why we shouldn’t just migrate to 12.5 KHz. narrow-band
analog until such a time we are forced by the FCC to 6.25 KHz. technologies and
just skip P25 at 12.5 KHz?  This too will cost something, but only a small
fraction of what going P25 will cost.

Leonard Goodnow

Radio technician,

Southwestern New Hampshire District Fire Mutual Aid

Keene, NH

1. Production quantities
2. Mil Spec quality (810C, D, E &F, immersion specs, driven rain specs, etc.)
3. Power requirements - both RF and battery (RF: 3 watts vs. 100 mw - 500 mw)
4. Cellular marketing strategies (as Jack so eloquently described)
Regards,
Gary