What's the Biggest Challenge in Implementing the P25 Compliance Assessment Program (CAP)?
September 02, 2009
Chris Lougee
Vice President
Icom America
The agreement by all interested parties on the criteria and testing methods. It has taken time, but the result is strong industry consensus. It should be invaluable for the government customer to use in a Project 25 (P25) procurement process.
Dr. John Vaughan
Senior Vice President
RF Communications Division
Harris
We didn’t see it as a challenge, but as an opportunity. The opportunity wasn’t to simply test the required equipment, but it’s a legitimate chance to bring all the key industry manufacturers together to make P25 a rallying point for the LMR industry and more importantly, our customers. This is a tremendous example of a cooperative effort by all the players to coordinate and collaborate for the benefit of our nation’s first responders, which unfortunately doesn’t happen often.
The CAP program is a productive, conducive effort to provide all of our users with two things. One is assurance that the mission-critical products they buy can be relied on to work on almost any system, providing true interoperability. Second is the peace of mind that the P25 standard will truly become a standard; yielding a number of benefits connected with a true open, standards-based playing field, such as cost-efficiency, reliability and an understanding that customers will get what they thought they were buying. Standards mean that users have the freedom and assurance to purchase the technology that best suits their needs, requirements and purpose, and that they are assured it will work dependably and seamlessly with other manufacturers’ products when it needs to.
Mark Jasin
Senior Vice President and General Manager
Communications Sector
Kenwood USA
Additional expense. P25 is an expensive technology to develop and maintain, even more because the standards are a work in progress or refinement. The CAP program adds a new layer of overhead, including certification fees for new and modified submissions, plus the expense of hardware.
Bob Schassler
Senior Vice President
Enterprise Mobility Solutions
Motorola
In 2009, P25 manufacturers across the public-safety industry came together in an unparalleled way to reinforce P25’s position as a true interoperable standard. They demonstrated this by providing the public-safety industry with documented proof of interoperability. Motorola hosted a P25 Phase 1 Common Air Interface (CAI) interoperability event as a Department of Homeland Security (DHS)-recognized lab in July.
The biggest challenge to the P25 CAP hasn’t stemmed from implementation of the program but rather in keeping the objectives of the program focused on the needs of our customers — providing documented proof of interoperability between P25 manufacturers’ products. P25 Phase 1 CAI trunked interoperability was added to the program in 2009, and we believe the interoperability testing for the other P25 interfaces should be the next priority for the program. Motorola is confident that if the industry keeps the program focused on interoperability, we can continue to make new progress on meeting public safety’s pressing need for documented proof of interoperability for not only the CAI interface but other P25 interfaces as well.
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