MCP's informational podcast series features the firm’s subject-matter experts and other industry leaders exploring a wide range of timely topics pertaining to mission-critical communications.

In this episode of the Mission Critical Partners Podcast Network, we discuss Integrating Broadband technology with traditional LMR systems. We are joined by Mission Critical Partners, Scott Neal, Vice President, Director of Wireless Services.

• Scott Neal, Vice President, Director of Wireless Services, Scott brings over three decades of wireless communications experience to MCP. Scott retired in 2015 after completing a 28-year career with the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP). Since joining MCP in 2015, he has served as project manager on multiple projects and was the lead consultant supporting multiple states in the planning effort for the nationwide public safety broadband network. He currently leads a team of 23 professional consultants who specialize in supporting our client's mission critical wireless networks.

Integrating Broadband with Traditional LMR Systems Episode 11

Announcer:

Welcome to the Mission Critical Partners Podcast Network. Here's Glenn Bischoff.

Glenn Bischoff (host):

Greetings, and welcome to Mission Critical Partners Podcast Network. I'm Glenn Bischoff, MCP's content specialist, and I'm with Scott Neil, MCP vice president and director of wireless services. And today, we're going to be talking about how to integrate broadband technology with traditional land mobile radio systems. Scott, thank you so much for squeezing us in today, and we're really eager to hear what you have to say on this topic.

Scott Neal:

Oh, my pleasure, Glenn. Thank you.

Glenn Bischoff (host):

So, Scott, at one point, and it wasn't that long ago, the conventional wisdom was that with the advent of public safety broadband networks, such as the one that's being implemented by the First Responder Network Authority, or FirstNet, that eventually land mobile radio systems would go away. It's cost-prohibitive to maintain two separate networks, et cetera, et cetera. But I think that thinking has changed just a bit in the last few years, and I'd like to have you start by explaining that to us.

Scott Neal:

Sure. I'd be glad to. So, you're exactly right. Back in 2012, when President Obama signed the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act that created FirstNet and charged the first First Responders Network Authority with building out the nationwide public safety broadband network, a lot of people, including myself, thought that at some point in the future, public safety first responders would all be communicating on a broadband network and that the LMR networks would drift off into the sunset. And like I said, I held that same opinion up until probably within the last year or two. And why I am not of that opinion necessarily right now has to do with a couple of factors. Number one, LMR provides what we call mission-critical voice. And there are features involved in mission-critical voice on an LMR network that are not able to be replicated on a broadband network yet.

And that's things like point-to-multipoint broadcast, device-to-device communications, things like that. But those things are absolutely critical for first responders in the field when they're dealing with the types of emergencies they respond to. Now, that being said, I do anticipate that as we move forward in the broadband realm, and as those standards, the mission-critical voice standards get implemented and become more mature and evolved, that broadband will approach the ability to try and replicate some of that same stuff. But there are still other problems I see with broadband being the only communications platform for public safety.

And let's talk about number one, coverage. So, right now, if you took the coverage footprint of all of the LMR networks we have in this country and overlaid it on top of the coverage footprint, let's say for AT&T, who is the partner with FirstNet that operates the nationwide public safety broadband network, I believe you're going to see a significant difference in that LMR has significantly more coverage than what the AT&T network does. AT&T built its network out based on a commercial model. I believe they, among themselves, even say that they have 75% of the land area in the country covered, which they state encompasses about 99% of the population. I won't even try to argue that. That's probably accurate. The problem with that is, when they're talking about 99% of the population, they're talking about where the population lives and works.

Whereas public safety oftentimes finds themselves out in the middle of nowhere, in the hinterlands, doing some very dangerous things. So, the question now becomes, is AT&T going to build out their coverage? When we design public safety LMR networks, we design them for 95% coverage. Whether that's mobile-based or portable-based, 95% is the standard.

Do I see AT&T ever building out to that 95% coverage model? I do not. And I know that they like to say that they have deployables and things that they can use to augment the coverage. But right now, they don't guarantee a deployable even to be on site for 14 hours. Whereas if you have, and in my past life, I was a police officer for 28 years. I was involved in multiple manhunts in very remote, very wooded areas, and you don't have 14 hours to wait. So, without that coverage, I don't know how public safety would ever adopt that as their only means of communication.

And lastly, is the network itself and having visibility into the networks. AT&T, because of the nature of what they do on the commercial side, are in a highly competitive space. They are very secretive about the architecture of their network, about the hardening of their network. They don't want to disclose even what sites, specifically in an area they have that have backup generators, should a site go down. So, I also now question, will public safety ever have the confidence in a commercial network that they can use it for all of their communications? And I have to be honest with you, I don't think, with all those things combined, that we're ever going to see LMR go away. Now, I could be proven wrong, certainly could be proven wrong. I said, even when I was thinking that it would, I thought it would be 15 to 20 years. And once again, I could be proven wrong, but right now, at this point, I don't think so. I think we're going to need the LMR networks to be around for as long as we can think of.

Glenn Bischoff (host):

And speaking at the coverage for another moment or two, there are some fiscal realities associated with that. I mean, the commercial carriers are. They need a certain population density to justify investing in building out infrastructure, right. And those rural areas that you spoke about earlier. They just don't have the population density that the commercial carriers, like AT&T, need to justify the investment that they need to make.

Scott Neal:

You're absolutely right, Glenn. And I don't fault AT&T for this. That's the difference between private sector and public sector. Private sector businesses are in the business to make money. They have obligations to their shareholders to get a return on investment for their shareholders. So, therefore, they have to operate within those parameters and be very careful how they spend their money. And you're right; there is no return on investment for building out the AT&T's network coverage in the quote, unquote, "hinterlands" because there's nobody there to subscribe to the service. Whereas, on the public sector side, we truly use these LMR networks for communications. It's not a profit and loss type of proposition. It is strictly because our first responders need to communicate to do their jobs effectively. And so, we have to build the coverage where it is needed there, and it's not a profit and loss type situation that they have in the private sector. So, I think when you have the intersection of public safety first responders with a commercial entity that is a for-profit entity, I think that there are some inherent problems in there that are extremely difficult to overcome.

Glenn Bischoff (host):

All right. I think you're correct about everything you've said and that the LMR systems and the public safety broadband systems, whatever form they take, are going to be part of the public safety landscape for the foreseeable future. So, now let's talk about how to leverage those capabilities optimally. How do you integrate a public safety broadband network with a traditional legacy land mobile radio system, and why would you do that?

Scott Neal:

In my opinion, public safety really is in a position where they can take advantage of the best of both worlds. LMR provides the best quality of voice communications to public safety first responders that is available. And that is the life's blood of them. But by the same token, in today's world, it's all about data. There is literally billions of sources of data that we have out there in the world today that, you know, everyone has a smartphone, that you're constantly using data, and public safety is no different. With all the IoT sensors and the camera systems out there, there are so much rich data available that public safety can really use to make their jobs more efficient and save more lives, and you can't do that over LMR. You have to have broadband. And that's why the nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network that's being operated by FirstNet with their partner, AT&T, providing priority and prevention for public safety first responders is such a great thing because now they can actually access that data. They can actually access real-time video and large pictures if they need it, to do their jobs.

So, the question now becomes, how do you best take advantage of using both those networks? So, even on our LMR side today, even though we designed these networks for 95% coverage, there are still coverage holes everywhere. And you have the ability now, even on the voice side, through push-to-talk applications on your smartphone, you can interconnect the FirstNet network, so to speak, with your public safety P25 network through an ISSI connection. So, now you can communicate with your cell phone on your LMR network, as well as the broadband network. And what that serves to do, from a voice perspective, now you can leverage the coverage of your LMR network and your broadband network, the FirstNet network, and you're going to probably increase the coverage of your LMR network, just for voice communications, by multiple percentage points, by being able to leverage the AT&T network to augment that voice coverage.

And then, through the AT&T network, the FirstNet network, you also have the capabilities of accessing rich data that, another list of problems, in how you operationalize that data, but nonetheless, we'll figure that out moving forward. The fact of the matter is, now you have access to that data, and you can use that. And I have just much more situational awareness of everything that is going on. And so, the two networks, in a perfect world, in the best circumstances right now, I should say, really serve to complement and supplement each other extremely well. And public safety needs to leverage the utility of both these networks.

Glenn Bischoff (host):

So, Scott, I want to ask you about the ISSI. Now, that's the Inter-RF Subsystem Interface, correct?

Scott Neal:

Yes.

Glenn Bischoff (host):

And if I remember correctly, that is part of the Project 25 standard suite.

Scott Neal:

Yes.

Glenn Bischoff (host):

All right. So, I'm guessing then that ISSI can be used. Let's imagine a scenario where incident commanders at the scene of a disaster who are on the LMR network, they can be talking to government officials who might be using, let's say the FirstNet network, using an application on their smartphone. They're connected to the FirstNet network, and through that interface, they could actually be talking to an incident commander in the field who's boots on the ground, and they can coordinate the response more intelligently, a better-informed response. Am I right about that?

Scott Neal:

Yeah, absolutely. So, if you have that ISSI interface between your P25 network and the FirstNet network, and your senior commanders in your agency have a smartphone with that push-to-talk app on it, no matter where they are at in the country, so to speak, as long as they're within the coverage footprint of the AT&T network, they have the ability, just like you said, to speak on their LMR network. They could have an incident going on in their home jurisdiction, let's say it's in Arizona, maybe they're on vacation in Alaska, and if they have coverage in Alaska on the AT&T network, they can actually communicate on that LMR network through that AT&T FirstNet network and that ISSI interface. And in certain circumstances and major incidences, that's critical.

Glenn Bischoff (host):

Well, and it even comes to mind that they could be talking to possibly somebody on the federal level in Washington, getting advice from that level as to how to handle a certain event, depending on what the event is.

Scott Neal:

Yes. Yep, absolutely correct. They could be talking to anybody.

Glenn Bischoff (host):

All right. So, I think we've established pretty effectively that it's a good idea to integrate LMR systems with public safety broadband systems. What are some of the challenges that stand in the way of doing that, and how can those challenges be overcome?

Scott Neal:

Well, the biggest challenge, as I believe with everything we do in government and public safety, usually starts with the cost. LMR networks are expensive. I mean, they are big-dollar networks. You have a big capital expenditure when you're building one or upgrading one, and then you have significant ongoing expenses to make sure you're operating and maintaining that. And now you bring in this other network, which is subscription-based, but still, now you have to pay for your subscription costs for access to the broadband network. So, there is a cost factor involved there. And one of the other challenges, as we move forward and get into using data on the broadband network more and more, is agencies really need to keep up with their policies and procedures in that case. And this isn't so much on the integration side, just on the general use of a broadband network to access data.

There's controversy out there already in some of these data sources that can be used. And I'll just throw out facial recognition, for example. Facial recognition is a great tool, but there's certainly controversy, privacy concerns around that. So, it's critical, as law enforcement, specifically, I'm talking law enforcement side, because that's generally where you get the privacy concerns becoming involved. You make sure you're crafting your policy so the data is only used as it should be; it's not being abused. Other than that, those are probably the two biggest challenges on the integration side of it. Your cost, your policies and procedures, anytime you're using anything new, you're going to learn as you go. Those are the biggest challenges I can see right there.

Glenn Bischoff (host):

Well, and of course, MCP stands at the ready to provide some guidance in this area. We are well versed in LMR systems. We're well versed in public safety broadband systems. And all anybody listening to this podcast needs to do is reach out.

Scott Neal:

Yeah, because, and just one other thing, you talk about strictly on the broadband side, as we're integrating broadband. Because what we're doing is, we're really integrating broadband into our operations because we've had LMR for 50 or 60 years. So, what we're talking about now that's really new is integrating robust broadband capabilities into that. And what that primarily means is data, and when we talk about data, I already said there's billions of sources of it out there, a big challenge is how do you identify those sources? How do you capture it? How do you operationalize it?

We all too often suffer from tragic events, such as mass shootings, and we've just had a couple here. It was just in the last couple of weeks, one in New York and one in Texas. It's tragic, but I think we can all agree, let's say that in these venues that these incidents happen in, if there's a camera system, that's great data for police officers responding to the scene, to actually be able to see what's going on inside one of those. But you can't just throw a hundred camera views to a first responder's device and expect him to be able to parse through that in real-time and figure out which ones he needs and which ones he doesn't.

There has to be a way of parsing the data that we can send to our first responders and only send them the data that they really need, and they can use in real-time. This is the other challenge I talked about with data. We will figure this out. It's going to take some time and years to get that figured out. But it is going to be a challenge now that we have all this data; how do we actually operationalize it so we can make decisions off of it?

Glenn Bischoff (host):

Right. The tsunami of raw data has virtually no utility, but if you can contextualize that data and, as you say, parse it so that it's actionable, that's when it really becomes tremendously effective.

Scott Neal:

Definitely.

Glenn Bischoff (host):

So, all right, Scott, unfortunately, we have reached the end of our time together. I want to thank you for spending some time with us today and sharing these insights. I want to thank everybody who's listening to this podcast for doing so. We appreciate that very much, and we hope to see you again soon, very soon, on another MCP Podcast Network event. So long.

Announcer:

Mission Critical Partners is a professional services and IT services firm that helps clients evolve their public safety systems and operations and improve emergency response through our extensive experience, knowledge and resources. By providing insight and support every step of the way, our clients are able to transform their mission-critical operations, maximize the value of their investments and ensure optimal performance and success. Learn more by visiting MissionCriticalPartners.com.