Batboard

We currently are using MOTO TRBO at work. I am on a committee to make a proposal that we switch to a statewide P25 trunked system. Personally, I happen to think that MOTO TRBO is better suited for business and P25 is better suited for public safety. Anyway, can anybody here point to an good on line articles that will help convince the "powers that be" to allow us to switch from MOTO TRBO to the P25 trunked system? I think one of the biggest things is that the time slots might be occupied by other users on MOTO TRBO and will result in a system busy to someone trying to access the system. At least with the P25 trunked system we could "ruthlessly preempt" the local dog catcher or other users with lower priority. Anyway, if anybody has any good articles on why MOTO TRBO is not as well suited for public safety, I would love to hear from you.

I am not the most appropriate person to respond to this question since I am not intimately familiar with setting up either a Trbo trunking or a P25 trunking system. I've built both, but was not involved in the design or the final configuration. But, I can say that the cost of ownership of a Trbo is a heck of a lot less than a P25 at every level from the subscriber units to the infrastructure. And with the product advances in Trbo, it more closely matches cellphone performance and features that P25 systems don't seem capable of. With government services being squeezed for every penny, cost of ownership is a big deal.

I used to be one of these guys that thought "TRBO isn't for public safety"

Then I became a TRBO user.

The latest system release, and 2nd generation subscriber radios make anything P25 phase I seem so 1996.

The noise cancelling of the latest 2nd gen radios (like the XPR7550, which I am proud to own) are AMAZING. Features like automatic volume control on RX also make for situational awareness. Yes, the APX line does most of this, but for about four times the price, not to mention the network. Features like transmit interrupt, emergency, and GPS location all are quite suited for a small to medium size gov't agency. The cost effectiveness of building out a TRBO system is hard to beat, especially when it comes to the performance you get.

There are many large TRBO systems in use by public safety in my neck of the wood who chose that route in response to narrowbanding their poorly performing VHF analog widebands, and while they would LOVE to have joined our built out a 700/800 DTRS, they could not afford the ASTROnomical prices. Instead, they spent very little, and got a functional, expandable TRBO system which is reliable, has the in-building coverage they critically needed, at a VERY affordable price. The users love it, they are safer. The county commissioners love it, as they didn't have to raise the millage rates or propose a SPLOST to pay for it.

Current studies which are in process suggest TRBO is less than ideal. Not comparing it to P25, but TRBO 2-slot TDMA in a congested urban environment on a 12.5 kHz channel isn't going to work very well as the TDMA carrier envelope is a square wave, which makes adjacent channel interference protection very difficult as the carrier occupies the entire bandwidth at the same amplitude. TRBO is being pitched to 12.5 kHz channel spacing users as the FCC allows "6.25 kHz equivalent" voice and data usage. Try to find a true 6.25 kHz receiver or even a 12.5 kHz receiver that the manufacturer will tell you what the adjacent channel rejection at 6.25 kHz is.

The adjacent channel rejection issue is a main reason why TRBO has been rejected by law enforcement users in the bigger city areas. Other than that, the price-benefit ratio is good compared to P25, as above.

It boils down to the Motorola sales force has been making regular trips to the bank recently with the money crunch that most public agencies have. The cost of the P25 systems is driving these agencies into the TRBO systems. As has been stated performance in high RF environments is not the greatest. This is a big setback to those that have chosen to go this route.

Another big fact that isn't being mentioned is that when an agency goes to the TRBO system, it creates an island all by them selves. The regular P25 radios now have no way to communicate with their neighbor agencies that went TRBO. This isn't the way that interoperability is suppose to work.

When the upper management sees the dollar cost between the 2 types of systems, they are going to always go with the lower cost. However, there are other vendors with good equipment that have never got the chance to even get their foot in the door. Agencies that don't go out for open bids and just listen to the slick sales pitch with the smoking mirrors will end up with this. Good luck to them in the long run.

Jim

Jim1348 wrote:Anyway, if anybody has any good articles on why MOTO TRBO is not as well suited for public safety, I would love to hear from you.

Quite frankly, I don't think you're going to find any. Although Motorola terms TRBO as "Operations Critical" as opposed to touting Astro25 gear as "Mission Critical", there's very little to distinguish the two from one another. The main thing with P25 that big agencies may want or need is the capability for AES encryption, and the ability to secure the network at all levels...no voice in the clear from subscriber to console. Beyond that, TRBO has P25 beat in pretty much every aspect concerning costing, ease of deployment, range of applications, etc.

One could make the argument that the P25 subscriber gear is more rugged than TRBO, although with the newer XPR7000 series, it's marginal...but the price difference isn't!

TRBO transmit interrupt & remote dekey capabilities can give priority to higher level users. Interoperability can be achieved via analog mutual aid channels or console patch...much the same as needs to be done for P25 agencies that may be an island unto themselves.

In the end, budget & security requirements are going to determine what system is "best" for a particular agency.

I tweaked around with the TRBO radio disable feature, and this might be a sport where P25 gear should be a tad better.
I'm not familiar with P25 gear, but I've understood that a P25 radio can be stun or inhibited remotely, and has to receive treatment from whoever stunned/inhibited it.
Thus rendering the radio bricked, if acquired in some shady way.

With trbo, this is not the case. A disabled radio can easily be restored (tested with the DM3601, equivalent to XPR4550).
Trbo has RAS, haven't tried that yet (I'm a DMR-MARC user). P25 should be more "closed" anyways.

Just my thoughts.

We use GP330's and GP340s' for our voluntary FD so.. (these are only used for crew members to another. Tetra is used for dispatch)

wavetar wrote:

Jim1348 wrote:Anyway, if anybody has any good articles on why MOTO TRBO is not as well suited for public safety, I would love to hear from you.

Quite frankly, I don't think you're going to find any. Although Motorola terms TRBO as "Operations Critical" as opposed to touting Astro25 gear as "Mission Critical", there's very little to distinguish the two from one another. The main thing with P25 that big agencies may want or need is the capability for AES encryption, and the ability to secure the network at all levels...no voice in the clear from subscriber to console. Beyond that, TRBO has P25 beat in pretty much every aspect concerning costing, ease of deployment, range of applications, etc.

AES was supposed to have already been released for the TRBO radios and will be available in the near future. TRBO already supports 40 bit encryption, and at no additional cost to the user. 40 bit is plenty good for any first responder.

One could make the argument that the P25 subscriber gear is more rugged than TRBO, although with the newer XPR7000 series, it's marginal...but the price difference isn't!

Buy a comprehensive RSA warranty and now the warranty covers liquid, physical and chemical damage.

TRBO transmit interrupt & remote dekey capabilities can give priority to higher level users. Interoperability can be achieved via analog mutual aid channels or console patch...much the same as needs to be done for P25 agencies that may be an island unto themselves.

And TRBO still has console priority at the repeater as well

In the end, budget & security requirements are going to determine what system is "best" for a particular agency.

I don't think this is fair. Because you have more money, you should buy a Rolex, when a Timex is perfectly sufficient? I don't see what makes P25 any more secure than TRBO. In fact, it's easier to monitor P25, given the multitude of off the shelf scanners that are compatible. To listen to a TRBO signal off the air requires a computer, a scanner with discriminator tap, and more technical knowledge than the average bear. P25 does not equal interoperability. Analog is already interoperable.

Oh, and as for mutual aid with agencies running encryption. Take a look at the recent school shootings in Santa Monica. SMPD runs encrypted. Nobody else does. It was a cluster when the only interagency RF comms came over the access channel. It was a perfect example of the joke that is an encrypted dispatch channel.

escomm wrote:Oh, and as for mutual aid with agencies running encryption. Take a look at the recent school shootings in Santa Monica. SMPD runs encrypted. Nobody else does. It was a cluster when the only interagency RF comms came over the access channel. It was a perfect example of the joke that is an encrypted dispatch channel.

Between encryption compatibility, and proprietary trunking protocols, the whole CAI concept gets thrown out the window.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. Sounded like the fire side had a much better time coordinating the MA, private EMS, and move up companies. Guess what modulation they were using??????

I "play" on an 13 mile stretch of drivable land that uses separate UHF repeaters for borough and township police (yet they're accessible by all departments) and then a VHF repeater for fire and EMS (squads use their own individually licensed repeaters for response coordination).
They considered bringing everyone into the county's troubled system, but coverage is spotty on our area and the system is generally unreliable (even outside of the fact that were on the coast). A storm came through and ruined a lot of equipment leaving us with a choice - go on the county system and resell the equipment when the county transitions to 700 (no timeline) or remain tied to a similar system that we know already works. They chose Trbo; they're leaving it on analog and will be gradually switching everyone in the smaller boroughs to Trbo. Why they chose Trbo instead of p25 is probably based off of cost; it's semi cheaper to fund a Trbo system for such a small coverage area than p25. Also, even if the system was good (for both the current trunked UHF or proposed 700) it wouldn't be conducive for the coverage area.
I guess what I'm getting at is - its great for a small non-complex coverage area that needs to save money. It works well and allows simplistic functionality and features for line level officers or personnel.

(Sent from iPhone).

you also have the talk groups it is not hard to add interop at the repeater site by linking other repeaters or using analog radios off the accy port on the rpt