![]() Fundamentally, we would like to see them over time migrate their system, but we didn’t want to punish them financially,” for doing so, Chenicek said. Motorola came to the same realization, which is why the vendor is pledging to help hold down prices, according to Chenicek. But if we had on a lower level … the market would embrace it.” Hospitals don’t place that kind of priority on their communications systems. Public safety a lot of the time has millions of dollars to spend on radio systems. “Over the years, people have asked about and wondered why they can’t get it when it’s already in the public-safety sector,” Purvis said. “Will they pay themselves off and can you justify adding them to the business?”ĭale Purvis, president of COMSOUTH, a Motorola dealer based in Hattiesburg, Miss., agreed, adding that the time is right for MOTOTRBO. ![]() “In the business world, it comes down to the economics of the tools that you buy,” Chenicek said. ![]() Over time, you could switch it to digital.”Īlthough such flexibility is important, Chenicek conceded that cost would be the primary driver for MOTOTRBO to gain traction in the professional sector. “For example, if you were expanding your network and needed another repeater, you likely wouldn’t buy an analog repeater, but instead would buy a MOTOTRBO repeater and use it in the analog mode. “This allows you to migrate channels, talk groups or entire systems over time,” he said. Other features include GPS capability - making it easier for dispatchers to deploy the closest field technician to a given situation to realize improved operating efficiencies and lower costs - and an integrated text-messaging function that lets dispatchers communicate with field personnel when voice communications would be inappropriate.Īlso, because MOTOTRBO radios can operate in both digital and analog mode, they are backward-compatible, which should further aid the analog-to-digital migration, Chenicek said. “We operate in 30 different offices on the West Coast, from small rural communities to big metro areas, and in the metro areas we’re seeing spectrum-efficiency issues where this digital product is going to bring us some opportunities.” “You need the wide pipe to get data down it, and, you still have the full use of the 12.5 kHz pipe.”Ī digital radio geared to the professional sector, particularly in large urban centers, is good news, said Mike Ishida, director of sales for Day Wireless Systems, a Motorola dealer in Portland, Ore. He added that use of two-slot TDMA also results in higher data throughputs. “It doubles the efficiency using a single ,” Chenicek said. Motorola built MOTOTRBO using a two-slot time division multiple access (TDMA) platform that creates two independent 6.25 kHz voice channels within a standard 12.5 kHz channel. But where the new platform really shines is in the area of spectrum efficiency, he said. “We found that they were most interested in spectrum efficiency, improved basics, new features, applications that would integrate into their businesses and a comfortable migration path.”Īccording to Chenicek, MOTOTRBO - built on the ETSI DMR Tier 2 standard - delivers improved performance typical of digital platforms when compared with analog, such as better audio quality, increased coverage, improved battery life and privacy. “Three or four years ago, we spent a lot of time and independent research to look at customers in the professional sector to understand why they were buying certain products and not others,” Chenicek said. However, the professional sector needed a more robust product capable of covering a much wider area, said Craig Chenicek, director of Motorola Radio Products. Previously, Motorola developed a digital radio platform called the DTR Series for the commercial tier - businesses largely in the retail and hospitality sectors, where users generally are confined to smaller onsite footprints. Better yet, Motorola has pledged to work with dealers to hold the line, keeping prices for MOTOTRBO handsets close to what these customers currently are paying for analog devices, to encourage them to make the migration. Motorola plans to change that by introducing at IWCE 2006 (May 17-19 in Las Vegas) a new digital platform dubbed MOTOTRBO that the vendor giant will market to the “professional” sector, e.g., construction firms, transportation companies and public utilities. Despite its attributes, which include a plethora of advanced features, digital radio so far has found application primarily in the public-safety and government sectors, largely because of the high cost of digital equipment compared with analog gear, which has proved prohibitive for profit-driven entities.
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