Motorola TRBO vs. P25

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Jim1348
Posts: 542
Joined: Sun Aug 15, 2004 7:52 am

Motorola TRBO vs. P25

Post by Jim1348 »

I have just recently started to pay attention to Motorola TRBO. I have started to read some of the articles about it, but for right now is it safe to say that Motorola TRBO is geared towards private sector and P25 more towards public sector? We have a couple of private sector power companies that have switched from analog to P25, but no public sector agencies using Motorola TRBO, at least not yet. Coming from a law enforcement background, I can't imagine a public sector agency selecting Motorola TRBO, since it would make interoperability more difficult, but then that really isn't a concern for many private businesses.
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Bill_G
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Joined: Thu Sep 17, 2009 5:00 am

Re: Motorola TRBO vs. P25

Post by Bill_G »

As far as I know P25 was developed by a consortium of public safety officials including APCO as well as state and fed agencies. So, it would be safe to say it was geared towards the public sector. MotoTrbo seems to be applying experience with digital cellular technology responding to the FCC mandate for narrowband LMR operation coming up soon. So, it may be safe to say it was intended for private sector. However, interoperability aside, with so many state and local governments in a budget crunch, and the inherent performance and functionality advantages Trbo offers, I would not be surprised to see Trbo solutions considered and implemented at least in smaller and rural agencies.

I recall back in the late 80's when 800 trunking was in it's hay-days signing an NDF with Moto, and making several trips to Seattle to install an experimental system called MIRS which we all know now as iDEN and Nextel. The subscriber units were clunky, and the audio quality needed improvement, but both have improved enormously. I had to bite my tongue many times as I returned to my territory to install brand new county wide 800M public safety systems knowing that there was a better and cheaper way than what we were deploying. It really kinda frosted my wheaties. P25 and Trbo may turn out to be a similar comparison - an order of magnitude higher in cost and not nearly the performance.
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