DISQUS

Steve R. · 2 years ago

The lack of interoperability is a management problem not a technical problem.

Further, your post mischaracterizes the issue. For example, you wrote that first responders don't design and build their own squad cares but buy them competitively, a true statement. But then you say that you don't want first responder designing and building guns to imply that they shouldn't be involved in designing communication equipment. This is a misleading statement. Seems like your logic is along the lines of "poisoning the well".

1. My experience in emergency communication has involved the utilization of equipment that was obtained through the competitive acquisition of existing off-the-shelf commercial equipment, both handhelds, base stations, and repeaters. None of this equipment was "designed" all was bought from regular commercial vendors.

2. People who work on radio equipment in public service are technologically competent. Your post seems to imply that radio technicians in the public sector don't have the same skill set as the private sector. The reality is they use the swinging door to move into and out of the private and public sectors.

3. The cell phone companies typically "lock" their phones so that they won't work with another companies cell phone system. An obvious interoperability issue. If a first responder service decides to switch to a different service will all the expensive cell phones have to be tossed into the garbage and all new expensive cell phones have to be bought?? If one providers tower goes down, can the first responders use another companies tower??? These seem to be private sector interoperability issues that have yet to be discussed.

Conservative News · 2 years ago

When a cell phones moves out of network onto a different network i guess the same happenes, it utilizes the network of a different provider, charging more. However for local network, it stands cancelled.