Subject: [NEXTEL-1] IP is the future - but when?

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 01:53:51 -0400

IP is the future - but when?
By Glenn Bischoff

Mobile Radio Technology
May 1, 2004

While topics such as 800 MHZ interference, interoperability and Homeland
Security created most of the buzz at the recent IWCE 2004 in Las Vegas,
another topic that comparatively flew under the radar this year -
Internet protocol - likely will be generating the buzz at future events.

Several vendors showcased new IP-based solutions, led by M/A-COM, which
introduced its VIDA (voice, interoperability, data and access) solution
that achieves interoperability between disparate radio networks by
converting voice to packets and transmitting them over an IP backbone.
In addition, Raytheon JPS Communications upgraded its interoperability
solution - the ACU-1000 - by adding voice-over-IP and radio-over-IP
components, while EFJohnson added VoIP to its Project 25-compliant
Netelligent Infrastructure System.

They're somewhat ahead of the curve, according to Harlin McEwen,
chairman of the International Association of Chiefs of Police's
Communications & Technology Committee. While acknowledging that IP will
"be a player in the future - no one would disagree with that," McEwen
said the platform has yet to develop to the point where it could be
considered by public safety for mission-critical voice communications.

"Where it falls short is that you have a variety of choke points.  When
you're dealing with [IP transmissions] going through several different
servers and communications points, all of those are possible failure
points," McEwen said. "What we're looking at now is, how are people
going to build and engineer systems of the future to prevent that."

Vendors already are rapidly improving on that shortcoming, according to
Amalesh Sanku, vice president of marketing at EFJohnson.

"IP is still being developed; right now it's not perfect or the
technology it's expected to be," Sanku said. "But the maturity curve is
so high up that I think we can start deploying these systems."

Sanku said the problem with past IP networks is that they weren't
configured properly. "IP [today] is a distributed model. That means the
control is not centralized; it's distributed across a variety of
different functions and points of contact. In a centralized model, which
is what I think Chief McEwen is referring to, when a message comes in
and the central server is down, you have a problem. In a distributed
network, there is no single point of failure. That's one of the
advantages of IP."
Sanku added that current IP networks also give voice packets "the
highest priority" to address problems with latency and blockages that
plagued earlier generations of the platform.

While agreeing that IP has moved very quickly along the evolutionary
curve, it's going to be some time before IP-based technologies achieve
widespread acceptance in the public-safety community, according to Roman
Kaluta, manager of public-safety, interoperability for Raytheon JPS
Communications.

"A lot of the fear of IP-based technologies is that the LMR people
aren't familiar with IP, and the IP people aren't familiar with LMR,"
said Kaluta, who is a retired lieutenant with the Alexandria, Va.,
police department.

"It's just going to take time for the two to converge. Now that you have
people who are actually utilizing it, [others] are beginning to see the
benefit."

While IP adoption would benefit from more public-safety agencies getting
past their fears to take a leap of faith on the technology, Kaluta
believes industry vendors ultimately will have to lead first responders
to the Promised Land.
"A lot of what public-safety is going to do is going to be dictated by
what industry does," he said. "If the big vendors start touting IP and
start building IP-based radios, if they make a big investment, well,
they are the biggest LMR dealers. Then that's the way [this] will go."

But Kaluta also said that LMR wouldn't disappear overnight. "With the
lifecycle of radio systems and where we are with radio today, I don't
see LMR disappearing, especially overnight. Usually the life expectancy
of a radio system is 15 years, and it's not unusual for budgetary
reasons to push that to 20 to 25 years. So, given the costs that are
involved, a wholesale replacement would be cost prohibitive."

© 2004, Primedia Business Magazines and Media, a PRIMEDIA company.
All rights reserved.

 http://iwce-mrt.com/ar/radio_ip_future/index.htm

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