The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate just announced the 14 lead organizations that will participate in the testing and evaluation phase of the multiband radio project. It’s the final step before manufacturers start inundating the marketplace with their own version of the radio. The eventual widespread availability of the radios makes me wonder: If multiband radios hit the market next year and public-safety agencies nationwide adopt them, why do we need to build out a broadband, public-safety network?

I’ve seen an early version of the multiband radio from Thales Communications, which was demonstrated nearly at the 2008 International Wireless Communications Expo. The Thales radio has been used throughout the pilot because the company landed a hefty $6.275 million DHS contract to develop it. The radio operates in the 136–174 MHz, 360–400 MHz, 402–420 MHz, 450–512 MHz, 700 MHz and 800 MHz frequencies — letting command-and-control personnel communicate across bands during a large-scale, cross-jurisdictional incident. The radio also is capable of tapping into to other channels, such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s weather channel. As a result, it has the capability to be the crucial technology to solve the nation’s communication interoperability issues.

The radios seem to solve the issue of interoperability.  They work across frequencies and agencies. It’s a technology that can be used now for cross-agency communications without public-safety folks waiting and waiting for D.C. insiders and the FCC to work out the details of a nationwide, broadband public-safety network. But Dr. David Boyd — director of command, control and interoperability for the directorate — disagreed with me, saying he doesn’t believe multiband radios will make the buildout of the network obsolete. Instead, it helps with the migration from one type of network to another.

"This becomes the bridge device [to interoperability]. So if you are going to build out a public safety network you would expect commanders and so on to want a multiband radio for the build-out so they can communicate with the new network as they build it out," Boyd said. "And, interesting enough, it would let users work between the new and the old network as it is happening."

Boyd said the final pilot will test how the radio can be used in day-to-day operations. After the pilot program, the DHS expects the data to be used in two ways: Industry will use it to determine areas of improvement on their version of the multiband radio and users will be able to look at the key lessons learned from the pilot program. Results will be documented at the conclusion of the test, and all findings and lessons learned will be published in a report that is expected to be posted on the SAFECOM program Web site in early 2010, Boyd said.

But I still wonder: Once public-safety agencies get their hands on a multiband radio, will they still clamor for a public-safety network or will they let it go as yet another bureaucratic debacle that’s years from fruition? Only time will tell.

What do you think? Tell us in the comment box below.

My family moved when I was in the third grade — and I was devastated. The thought of leaving all of my friends was crushing. Though we were only moving seven miles, it might as well have been to the other side of the planet. I was dead set against it — which only goes to prove that 8-year-olds shouldn’t be allowed to make major decisions.

As things turned out, the move was the best thing that ever happened to me. I made new friends — such good friends that we still get together on a regular basis more than four decades later. The house my parents bought was a block from a giant park, a special place in which I spent most of the next 15 years. In fact, I visit the old neighborhood regularly, if only to buy pizzas from two sisters whose father regularly sold pies to my parents 40 years ago.

I was brought back in time by something said by Jim Vlassopoulos, the deputy chief of Washington, D.C., Fire and EMS, during yesterday’s National Conference on Emergency Communications in Chicago, which is being presented by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Emergency Communications (OEC). Vlassopoulos told the roughly 400 attendees that they needed to “get outside the sandbox,” and advised that “local fiefdoms” — which have plagued the effort to achieve interoperable communications for years — should be avoided in the future because they make it difficult to institute change.

These are concepts that many, if not most, people find uncomfortable. It’s scary outside the sandbox. Change is frightening. Few things are as terrifying as the unknown, which is the first place that change takes us. But as the old saying goes, if you do what you’ve always done, you’re going to get what you always got. The worst reason to do anything is because that’s the way it’s always been done.

OEC Director Chris Essid apparently agrees with this notion, saying yesterday that the status quo in public-safety communications needs to change if the goals of the National Emergency Communications Plan — which was mandated by the Homeland Security Act of 2002 — are to be met.

From my perch, change is a friend, not a foe. It is something to be embraced, not shunned. It’s what keeps us moving forward. And, as I discovered a long time ago, when you finally muster the courage to crawl out onto the limb, you sometimes discover the best pizza in the world. Or, as Chicago Fire Department Commander Len Edling said yesterday in his closing remarks, sometimes you discover someone who already has the wheel you’re trying to invent.

What do you think? Tell us in the comment box below.

Do you remember the old television commercials for the financial advice firm EF Hutton, which had as a tag line, “When EF Hutton talks, everyone listens”? A more contemporary twist on that tag line would be, “When the nation’s largest wireless operator outlines a plan for the proposed nationwide broadband communications network for first responders, everyone in Washington should pay attention.”

Yesterday at the International Wireless Communications Exposition, keynote speaker Steve Zipperstein, Verizon Wireless‘ vice president of legal affairs and general counsel, outlined a plan for the network that would give the 10 MHz of airwaves in the 700-MHz band, the so-called D Block, to public safety, rather than auction it to commercial operators. The spectrum would be allocated in the form of local, regional and state licenses. This is an interesting about-face. Recall that the wireless carriers, led by their lobbying group, the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, were adamantly against giving the D Block to first responders when the notion of this network first was floated three years ago at IWCE by Cyren Call’s Morgan O’Brien.

Under Verizon Wireless plan, agencies would figure out their individual needs and then contract with commercial operators through a bid process to build out the network, leveraging existing infrastructure, which would save considerable time and money, Zipperstein said. He noted that some estimates put the cost of building such a network from scratch at $60 billion or more.

The result would be a network of networks that would leverage IP technology to enable interoperable communications when major incidents requiring a multi-jurisdictional response occur. Also, public safety would have enough spectrum to meet its broadband needs, and have local and/or regional control over the airwaves.

Here’s the best part: Verizon Wireless wants the taxpayers to foot the bill. Zipperstein called on Congress to create a stand-alone stimulus bill dedicated to public safety interoperable broadband communications. He said that interoperable communications should no longer be treated as “some adjunct project,” but rather as a national security imperative, on the same level as “procuring aircraft carriers and fighter jets.”

I couldn’t agree more with this position. I have written at several junctures that the federal government should be looking at this network as it did the interstate highway system a half century ago. Of course, the difference between now and then is that today much of the highway already has been built, which is a huge advantage. Congress has proved that it can find money for initiatives when it wants to, even in a very tough economy. It needs to make this network a priority and fund it accordingly.

An important aspect of this plan is that the company, which authored it, wield incredible lobbying power on Capitol Hill. Harlin McEwen, the chairman of the Public Safety Spectrum Trust, which currently holds public safety’s 10 MHz of broadband airwaves in the 700-MHz band, asked during the keynote session whether the first responder sector could count Verizon Wireless and its lobbyists to be supportive should it embrace this new approach and lobby for it in Washington. Zipperstein didn’t hesitate in saying yes.

The underlying message delivered yesterday by the most powerful force in the commercial wireless sector is this: “If you want this network to become reality, here’s how to get it done.” It’s a message that public safety, as well as federal lawmakers and policy-makers, need to hear, loud and clear.

What do you think? Tell us in the comment box below.

Who doesn’t read Consumer Reports now and then? I do any time I’m faced with a major purchasing decision. There is comfort when one is planning to shell out hundreds — perhaps thousands — of dollars on an item in knowing whether the device is going to perform as advertised, meet one’s needs and provide equal or better value to the dollars being spent. The publication’s staff experts provide a certain level of such comfort when they independently determine whether a product is what it is supposed to be. Soon, it appears, those who purchase public safety communications equipment will be able to find similar comfort concerning Project 25 radios.

Last week, Urgent Communications Senior Writer Donny Jackson and I visited Motorola’s headquarters campus in the Chicago suburbs for a demonstration of public-safety P25 Phase 1 trunking interoperability. EFJohnson Technologies, Tait Radio Communications, Tyco Electronics M/A-COM and Technisonic Industries also participated. Besides us, the demo — which culminated a week of testing in Motorola’s lab — was witnessed by several public safety customers and consultants.

Everything worked just as it should have during the demo. That was expected — they didn’t drag us out there to showcase the failures. Being curious sorts, however, we wanted to have an idea of what went on behind the curtain and asked a Motorola representative to identify the radios that passed muster and those that didn’t. After considerable hemming and hawing, we were told that our question would go unanswered for the moment because of nondisclosure agreements but that the results of the tests eventually would be posted online.

We never like it when sources dodge our questions, but what’s truly important here is that the public-safety sector appears to be on the cusp of a new era, one in which those making purchasing decisions will have much-needed documentation regarding which radios truly are P25-compliant, so they can make more-informed choices.

The Motorola lab is awaiting recognition from the Department of Homeland Security, which has established the methods for P25 compliance testing. Other vendor labs will be launched soon. For instance, M/A-COM plans to conduct tests at its Lynchburg, Va., facility in the near future that will be similar to those conducted last week at Motorola. The plan is that all P25 vendor test labs will have DHS recognition by the end of April.

Some will wonder why this took so long, a reasonable question. We wondered that ourselves, and were told that the process to create a compliance assessment program, or CAP, started roughly three years ago, and that it’s quite the effort to get everyone — vendors, the DHS and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which also had a major role — on the same page. Given how long it has taken P25 to evolve into its current state, the three-year gestation period for the CAP doesn’t really seem all that long.

Regardless of the timing, this is a very positive development for the public safety community. One can never have too much information when one is making important decisions. This is especially true when those decisions require the spending of considerable amounts of money.

What do you think? Tell us in the comment box below.

All of us like to think we are selfless, as there is nobility in putting the interests of others ahead of one’s own. In large measure, selflessness is what makes us human.

When an act of selflessness is borne of higher purpose, it becomes conspicuous. Take Pat Tillman for instance. Tillman was a defensive back of some renown with the Arizona Cardinals, being paid millions of dollars to play a game he loved. His was a lifestyle that millions of men dream about—and he tossed it away to join the Army Rangers. When queried about his decision, he spoke of patriotism and duty, and said he was deeply moved by the events of Sept. 11, 2001. He didn’t seem to be bothered at all by the inherent danger of enlisting in the military at a time of war — danger that was all too real, as Tillman unfortunately was killed in combat.

Tillman’s sacrifice was extraordinary. However, there are others who have performed selfless acts that involved abandoning a comfortable lifestyle to do something more meaningful with their lives. I stumbled into one such person at the APCO Canada conference last month in Ottawa, Ontario. Her name is Lorrie Matthews, a supervisor with Calgary (Alberta) Public Safety Communications.

For 15 years, Matthews was the owner of a successful photo restoration business. Then, one day she woke up “wanting to do something more vital.” Her first instinct was to join the police force, but in the midst of training for that opportunity, Matthews broke her wrist playing soccer, which brought a premature end to that dream. Undeterred, she decided that working as a call-taker in a 911 center might fulfill her goal.

She told me of a call she took one night from a wireless phone. There was no sound coming from the other end, but she could tell that a connection existed. Because Canada’s 911 infrastructure is not as advanced as that found in the United States, the best they could do was identify the cell tower that handled the call. That scant information made the task of locating the caller akin to finding the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Despite the fact she had yet to hear the caller’s voice, Matthews’ instincts told her not give up on the call. “Intuition is what serves me best on this job,” she said. Finally, the caller uttered “Chinaman’s Peak,” a mountain in the Canadian Rockies popular with climbers. Buoyed by this breakthrough, Matthews tried to extract more information, such as whether he had been ascending or descending the mountain, which would help locate the caller or identify his problem.

Then the line went dead.

Fortunately, the man was able to call back shortly after and, incredibly, was transferred to Matthews, one of several call-takers on duty that day. “That’s very rare,” she said. The man told Matthews that he had been descending and had suffered heat stroke. “He only said four or five words — but they were able to find him.”

The experience told Matthews she had made the right lifestyle choice. “This is why I pursued this job.”

Her boss, Curtis Brochu, manager of public safety communications for the city of Calgary, is glad she did. “She’s a shining example of what we need in professional communications officers,” he said.

By Mary Rose Roberts

Although it pales in comparison to the $700 billion financial bailout, public safety organizations soon will receive $3 billion in federally funded checks. The Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency recently released guidance on how the FY 2009 grants will be spent. Grants will be allocated and are awarded according to a risk-assessment methodology used in FY 2008, according to DHS.

So I thought I would take the space in today’s column to break it down by the numbers. (And yes, to those wondering, interoperable communications is near the bottom of the list.) First of all, more than half of the billions will be allocated to the State Homeland Security Program and Urban Areas Security Initiative under the Homeland Security Grant Program. About $1.7 billion has been allocated to four initiatives below, the applications for which are due March 20, 2009:

$861.3 million: State Homeland Security Program to strengthen and build state, territorial and local preparedness capabilities through planning, equipment, and training exercises.

$798.6 million: The Urban Areas Security Initiative to enhance protection of 62 high-threat, high-density urban areas, with the seven highest risk areas competing for $439 million, or 55% of available funds. The Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Activities will receive at least 25 % from both funds for terrorism prevention.

$39.8 million: Metropolitan Medical Response System Program gets divided among 124 jurisdictions for regional, mass-casualty incident response and preparedness capabilities.

$14.6 million: The Citizen Corps Program to states and territories to engage citizens in community preparedness, response and recovery activities.

The rest of the money is targeted to more specific initiatives. Applications for the following grants are due on Jan. 13, 2009:

$388.6 million: Transit Security Grant Program to protect critical transit infrastructure from terrorism.

$388.6 million: Port Security Grant Program to protect port infrastructure from terrorism and support implementation of the Transportation Worker Identification Credential.

$306 million: Emergency Management Performance Grants for the enhancement of state and local governments’ all-hazards emergency management capabilities.

$48.6 million: Buffer Zone Protection Program for critical infrastructure sites, such as chemical facilities and nuclear power plants.

$48.6 million: Interoperable Emergency Communications Grant Program for planning, training exercises and equipment to states, territories, local and tribal governments to carry out initiatives identified in Statewide Communication Interoperability Plans.

$34 million: Regional Catastrophic Preparedness Grant Program for catastrophic incident preparedness in selected high-risk, high-incident urban areas.

$15 million: The Nonprofit Security Grant Program to support target-hardening activities at nonprofit organizations that are considered high-risk to be victimized by a terrorist attack.

$11.7 million: Intercity Bus Security Grant Program to assist intercity and charter bus services’ security plans.

$7.8 million: Trucking Security Program to implement security improvement measures and policies that focus on trailer tracking systems, so DHS can monitor, collect and analyze tracking information.

$1.7 million: State Homeland Security Program Tribal will be provided to tribal applicants.

Additional information is available at www.dhs.gov and www.fema.gov/grants.

It‘s too early to be certain, but FCC Chairman Kevin Martin‘s statements last week regarding an expected vote later this month on auction rules for the D Block sure smelled like a classic good-news/bad-news scenario for public safety entities counting on the auction to deliver wireless broadband to first responders.

The good news: Martin outlined an auction strategy greatly enhances the likelihood that commercial wireless operators will bid on the 10 MHz of spectrum in a manner that the FCC will deem a success — a much-needed victory after no qualifying bids were placed on the D Block earlier this year.

The bad news: Under the new FCC proposal, a successful D Block could result in a wireless broadband network for public safety that fails to provide coverage in about 97% of the geographic area of the United States.

That‘s because the new proposal requires only that 50% of the U.S. population be served by composite of regional operator for the FCC to declare the auction a success and award licenses to the high bidders in those regions that solicit offers. And, based on the latest census information, slightly more than 50% of the U.S. population live in the nation‘s 40 most-populous metropolitan areas, which combine to cover about 3% of the United States‘ land mass.

For public safety officials hoping that a successful D Block auction would lead to a nationwide wireless network for first responders, such news probably is disappointing. But the fact that the FCC is expected to approve the plan at its Sept. 25 meeting is a reflection of the commission‘s need to get this spectrum auctioned and have at least the beginning of a broadband network for public safety built.

Mind you, even under the previous rules — requiring 99.3% population coverage — critics noted that this would not have been a truly nationwide network, as vast areas west of the Mississippi River would not have been part of the coverage map. However, the new proposal could result in a coverage map that no longer blankets the continental United States east of the Mississippi.

In a press conference a week ago, Martin said the FCC would be conducting “almost three auctions” for the D Block simultaneously. One auction would present the spectrum as it was earlier this year, as a nationwide swath available for a minimum bid of $750 million, or almost half the reserve price for the D Block in the previous auction.

Of course, economics dictate that saving a few hundred million in upfront spectrum costs likely won‘t be enough to offset the projected $20 billion needed to deploy a nationwide broadband wireless network. As a result, most industry observers doubt that there will be any nationwide bids, although the FCC and the Public Safety Spectrum Trust both have expressed their preference for such a bidder.

Thankfully, the FCC has conceived of an alternate method to find a private partner. Concurrent with the nationwide D Block auction, there will be two auctions in which the spectrum will be divided into 58 regional licenses. To ensure technological uniformity across the network, bidders can submit their offers in either the WiMAX auction or the LTE auction.

If there is not a nationwide bidder, the FCC will award licenses and deem the auction a success if either of the technology-based regional auctions covers at least 50% of the U.S. population. If both the WiMAX auction and the LTE auction reach the 50% coverage threshold, the technology that provides more coverage will be declared the technology standard for the shared network — even if the consolidated bid amount for the other technology is greater.

As mentioned before, covering 50% of the population may not mean that a great deal of geographic area would have wireless broadband for public safety. However, this setup should be much more attractive to commercial carriers trying to sell the notion of participating in this unprecedented joint venture to potential investors at a time when the capital markets are tight, so there‘s a legitimate chance that carriers might be enticed to cover more than 50%.

Meanwhile, after the initial auction is complete and either WiMAX or LTE is chosen as the network technology, the FCC is going to do something unique. If some regions are unclaimed, it will lower the reserve price on those regions by half and offer them again to bidders willing to provide coverage in the chosen technology.

Another item that should appeal to commercial carriers is that the buildout period would be extended from 10 years to 15 years. Other buildout details — such as hardening requirement for site — that will greatly impact the economic viability of the network are still to be decided.

Only time will tell whether this approach will allow the public-private partnership to strike that delicate balance of being economically viable for the commercial partner and fulfilling public safety‘s needs. But Martin and the FCC deserve to be applauded for devising a multitiered approach to the auction that provides about as much flexibility as possible in an effort to attract commercial bidders.

My dentist always can tell when he hits a nerve — he has to put the drill down and pry me off the ceiling. A similar phenomenon happens in the world of journalism. When we write columns that hit a nerve, our e-mail boxes get inundated with reader responses. This is a good thing. Thoughtful responses from readers help to further educate us — and other readers — and help to keep us on our toes.

Readers offered many thoughtful responses to a column I wrote recently on the alleged problems digital radios are having in high-noise environments such as those found on the fireground. Evidence is mounting that digital radios are unable to distinguish between a firefighter‘s voice and background noise in some circumstances, leading to garbled transmissions that could put firefighters at greater risk. This obviously is reason for concern, but I had cautioned against the knee-jerk reaction of abandoning digital systems, that offer some performance advantages over analog, such as greater spectral efficiency and a stronger signal at the edge of the coverage area.

We shared many of these responses last week and today we share more. They have been edited for length.

“Performance advantages? Can you name any as they relate to the fire service? It‘s almost like you’re saying ‘other than intelligibility, digital radios work great.‘ Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln? In most cases, fire went digital because they were dragged along with police that wanted digital encryption. Contrary to what you read in all of the ads, digital isn‘t better because it‘s digital. Digital is better when it offers the customer something they need. When they don‘t need it, there‘s nothing wrong with analog. The industry needs to stop selling the customers something they don‘t want or need. Fireground radios should go digital right after the hydrants go digital.”

“There is no place for digital on the fireground. None. Not now, not ever. There are NO advantages to digital. None. We have enough trouble with good radio training, good practice, experienced people, and excellent equipment with analog, but we have coping mechanisms to deal with it. Introducing digital will get people killed. It already has, or has contributed to deaths, if even incidentally. Please be aware that we are not Luddites, and we are not opposed to new technologies. But we are opposed to any new technology that introduces problems rather than solves them. We do not have a problem with fireground communications in the analog world. That is the point. We do not need a solution. To be driven to digital by the market is to put us in danger.”

“I participated with NIST in helping to review and provide input to the language included into this report that did identify that using any radio, not just digital, may require a different location or position to be used, in a high-noise environment. Our experience on this issue is that radio use and tactical positions cannot always be selected to optimize the best voice quality. There are many times, as in an enclosed room or near a saw, in which a “mayday” or other information has to be sent from the position the radio is available in. Training is always important in how to properly use a radio, but even with this knowledge, the best tactical positions are not always an option.”

“I’ve been listening to handheld and land mobile radios for 50 years and today‘s digital cell phones and digital (P25) radios sound like crap. To suggest some training will fix what is inherently poor audio quality due to the low sampling rate is just silly. When I first heard a P25 radio demonstrated and read the technical specifications, I expected the emergency services users to shoot it down because they were so hard to understand. That hasn‘t happened, and I still don’t understand why not. Perhaps, as is so often the case, it will take a major loss of life due to radios that can‘t be understood for a groundswell of

resistance to develop. I pray it‘s none of my guys and gals that prove the point.”

“I agree training in proper use is important, but training should not be asked to make up for real technical problems that have technical solutions. Humans have a tendency to speak louder and louder to get their point across or when they are excited and stressed. In a typical radio, it is possible, when full of adrenalin, to reach the compression ceiling where the signal is loud but heavily clipped and garbled. Unfortunately, many digital radios suffer from this problem more than their analog cousins.”

“I have been working in communications for over 30 years, and the shoving of digital radios down the user‘s throat is the last straw. All too often, the manufacturers do not listen to the users before they release a product. If the users have ideas, they might show up in later product. As far as more training to be better users — suffice it to say that the tool should be almost idiot-proof. When you are facing the devil, you don‘t want to have to think, ‘I have to hold the radio in just the right place to make myself heard.‘”

Again, thanks to everyone who weighed in. We appreciate the feedback and love the fact we have such a passionate and engaged readership.

Lately we‘ve been writing about the problems that firefighters are having on the fireground with digital radios, which in some cases have had difficulty distinguishing between a human voice and background noise. Indeed, recent tests conducted by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration indicated that analog systems provided greater audio intelligibility than digital systems in four out of nine environments, including when SCBA masks and personal alert safety systems were in use.

But tests conducted by a radio technician in Florida suggest that the problem isn‘t the digital radios at all, but rather firefighters who haven‘t been trained adequately on how to use them in high-noise environments.

Terry Forehand, systems manager for Nassau County, said he put Motorola‘s XTS series and EFJohnson‘s 5100 ES series to the test in a variety of scenarios designed to replicate conditions on the fireground. Chainsaws were fired up, PASS alarms were triggered and a tunnel collapse was simulated. According to Forehand, the radios performed well. He said a few minor adjustments needed to be made to the Motorola handsets, which included turning off the automatic gain control.

But no adjustments needed to be made to the EFJ radios, which feature the enhanced half rate IMBE vocoder that has been specified for the second phase of the Project 25 standard. Currently, EFJ is the only digital radio vendor using this vocoder.

Forehand was impressed. Right now, the county exclusively uses Motorola radios, but “I would choose to buy the EFJohnson radios based on this testing — they work,” he said.

The real problem according to Forehand is the firefighters. “They need to do more training. We have to get them comfortable with being in noisy environments,” he said.

John Oblak, EFJohnson‘s vice president of standards and regulatory affairs, agreed and said an International Association of Fire Chiefs working group came to a similar conclusion, recommending “common sense” best practices that included talking directly into the microphone, knowing how to hold the microphone in relation to the voice port on the SCBA mask and — when possible — talking on the radio before triggering the PASS alarm.

“This will go a long way to mitigating the problem,” Oblak said.

This writing is not intended to suggest that the NTIA study is off base. Rather, it is intended to offer some additional food for thought. Apparently, some fire departments are considering abandoning their digital systems and going back to analog. Certainly others that have been considering an upgrade might now be putting those plans on hold, perhaps permanently. Given the clear performance advantages of digital technology, such knee-jerk reactions would be unfortunate.

One of the longtime problems in public safety communications has been the fact that the frequencies used by first-responder agencies are dispersed throughout the spectrum chart. In the name of interoperability, multiple vendors have designed myriad network-based solutions that allow patching between systems operating in different bands, but there‘s always a fundamental caveat: patching doesn‘t work if there‘s no coverage in the band in which your radio is designed to work.

As a result, public safety has become accustomed to stories of 800 MHz radios being useless when big-city personnel are dispatched to an incident in a rural area, where radio coverage likely is provided in the VHF or UHF bands, forcing the need for radio swaps or more creative solutions.

But such scenarios might not exist much longer, as multiband radios will be available from several manufacturers in 2009, providing public safety agencies with options that have been discussed at trade shows such as this week‘s Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials in Kansas City. The difference between this APCO show and previous industry trade shows is that agencies can now contrast and compare multiband portable radios from multiple vendors.

The trend started earlier this year at the IWCE conference in March, when Thales Communications announced its Liberty radio. The Liberty, a key component in a DHS pilot, can operate in the UHF, VHF and 700/800 bands, and was public-safety-ready in March. Since then, Thales has tweaked the prototype shown at IWCE — adding, among other things, a color display — and plans to make the Liberty radio generally available early in 2009, said Steve Nichols, Thales‘ director of business development for DHS/public safety.

Another multiband radio showcased at IWCE came from Harris, which displayed a multiband offering targeted to federal agencies. While impressed with the technology, several public-safety officials at the show expressed concern that Harris would not be able to make the radio for public safety, which needs gear with greater interference-mitigation characteristics. Apparently, such concerns were unfounded, as Harris this week has unveiled a public-safety version of its multiband radio.

One significant drawback associated with these radios is that they do not operate on proprietary systems used by most of public safety, only on P25 systems that represent a relatively small — but growing — portion of the market.

That‘s what makes the introduction of Motorola‘s APX 7000 multiband radio so significant. This new portable operates in the VHF and 700/800 MHz bands — and Motorola promises that a UHF and 700/800 MHz configuration is coming soon — not only on P25 systems. It also works on Motorola SmartNet and SmartZone systems that are used by a large percentage of U.S. public safety agencies.

The inclusion of proprietary protocols in a multiband handset makes such devices not only valuable interoperability tools but promises to make the migration to new P25 systems much smoother than has been the case in the past. Public-safety officials have made no secret that they hope that network vendors such as Motorola and M/A-COM will license their protocols to third-party multiband radio manufacturers, but there are serious questions whether the strategy would be in the legacy companies‘ financial best interest.

Regardless, the fact is that multiband capability no longer is a subject relegated to theoretical debates during conference sessions. These three vendors have products that can be seen and will be available next year, and more multiband handsets from other manufacturers should hit the market in the near future.

This reality opens up a new set of possibilities for public-safety communications. Once again, a big technological hurdle appears to have been cleared, leaving public-safety agencies to wrestle with two age-old issues — finding a way to pay for new equipment and developing the agreements and procedures to ensure that technological progress result in effective interoperable communications, not flexible chaos.