Coming from a phone background, I know I've seen a lot of companies move away from radios, but I believe there is such a need for that immediate communication in many industries that the demand is there. I see many organizations and businesses using them regularly. Do you all see this as a dying industry or a thriving one?
With the death of Nextel, there's a pretty reasonably sized market for PTT (Push To Talk) communications. Push a button, talk, everyone hears you - not just the person you dialed. "Everyone - main dishwasher is down, use the one in the basement" or "We're lifting the girder now" type stuff. It's a one to many channel, unlike calling or texting someone on the phone.
There have been many attempts to re-create the success of Nextel, but they've all fallen short of the mark, which has led to something of a comeback for two-way radio.
So I guess my big concern, is will the 2-way biz be relevant for many years to come?
Fairly relevant for a while to come yet. Perhaps someone will cook up a Nextel replacement one of these years, but after all of the effort they've spent for basically zero return, I suspect they have a bad taste in their mouths and won't try again for a while. VzW was knee-deep into it about 5-6 years ago, were you aware of that?
Bottom line, there's always a disruptor coming, you just don't know when or what it will be. But team voice communications for real-time events is really well served by two way - you can keep your eyes and hands free and get info right then and there.
So far the deputies tell me they have the same coverage area problems with VZW as with Sprint. There is just no cell towers for any carrier in certain areas of our county.
Coverage for any radio system is always tough, I don't need to tell you that.
However, there are significant differences in how those two providers architect and operate their systems, as well as the bands utilized. For LTE, VzW has a nationwide band class allocation in the 700 MHz band, which will work significantly better than Sprint's 1.9 Ghz band. EVDO it's 800 for Verizon in most of the country, which is still much better than 1.9 for range.
My quick advice is to use external, permanent antennas if you aren't already, and make sure that the operators know that those cards/MiFis are used for public safety. Next, complain like a banshee and again leverage the public safety angle. For VzW, call 611 and make sure they know you're calling from XYZ police department and you're not getting coverage.
It
will get attention (well, at least for one of the carriers). And yes, there are things that can be done short of adding towers to get coverage increases.
Back when Motorola was one company, they had their LMR side and their commercial cellular side. The commercial side was constantly being floated by the LMR side because it wasn't viable. LMR brought the money in and kept the other side going. Then Google bought the commercial side and Motorola split and the LMR side is now called Motorola Solutions and they are doing just fine. As we all know, Google sold off their commercial stake of the cellular side not too long ago - again, not profitable.
I'm sure someone from Solutions told you that story. While it has elements of truth in it, the reality is a bit messier than that - but I'm sure as huge parts of Motorola were sold off, MSI needed a quick and easy way to explain what was happening to their customers, who were likely watching the developments with some level of concern. So I'd view that as their PR statement on the topic, although I'd also wager some of the MSI old timers actually believe it to be totally the truth, which it isn't.
