Migrating from Analog to P25: Responding to Today’s Threats

The digital P25 radio standard has been available for well over a decade, but some agencies continue to rely on aging analog radio networks. Many factors contribute to this hesitance to upgrade, but the expanded communications benefits are clear. Tait has proven experience in migration from analog to digital P25, without disrupting your operations, and greatly improving your emergency response capability.

Your community trusts you to be there when the worst happens. Be it natural disasters, accidents or criminal threats, the citizens in your state or county rely on you to be the thin line between safety and catastrophe.

In the past, the limitations of analog voice communication were sufficient, but the threats first responders face are changing. Situations are more complex, and can evolve quickly. The requirement for a greater volume of accurate information to be available to your officers at any given moment can be the difference between success and failure.

The world is constantly evolving and it’s critical that public safety agencies keep up. As each year passes, new threats emerge in cyber security, natural disasters, and violent crime. Your agency needs to keep pace with the range of challenges, and the needs of the public.

Digital P25 networks open the door to tools that can make today’s operations safer and more effective, and integration with the tools that you will rely on tomorrow. Improved audio quality. Greater coverage. Data capability. Multi-agency interoperability. Broadband convergence. Smartphone integration. These features are at your fingertips with a digital P25 network.

  • Open Standards – P25 is an open standard, and this provides choice and price competition. This results in a wide range of products in the market to choose from, including the mobile and portable radios, repeaters, and network equipment, as well as different dispatch solutions.
  • Encryption – P25 was designed for public safety and first responder applications. One of the key requirements is to encrypt communications, so it cannot be intercepted by a third party. This can be very important for police and tactical teams, where interception of their communications could give away mission critical information.
  • Migration Path – Another aspect of P25 that has been important from the beginning. P25 digital radios included an analog FM mode of operation, allowing communication with older analog FM radios. This allowed P25 to be rolled out in a staged process.

Many agencies are comfortable with their existing analog networks, and that’s totally understandable. Your workforce is familiar with their current communication tools, change management is perceived as a risk, and there is fear of downtime between switching off your analog network and bringing a new network online.

Tait has a long history of providing painless network migrations to public safety agencies around the world. But don’t take our word for it, hear what some of our clients have to say.


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Tait P25 base stations are among the most flexible base stations on the market. They can operate in analog mode, so they can replace your current analog base station sites at your own pace, and instantly switched over to digital P25 when you’re ready. Tait P25 unlocks worker safety and efficiency features in radios that simply aren’t achievable with analog networks. The Tait TP9600 provides exceptional audio with a AMBE +2 enhanced digital vocoder, flexible connectivity options for conventional analog, digital and P25 Phase 1 & 2 digital trunking. Alongside Bluetooth® audio capability and enhanced worker safety features, such as man down and lone worker modes and location services and geofencing options.

The benefits of upgrading to digital P25 are clear, for both your agency and your community. The perceived difficulties can be managed or mitigated entirely by the team at Tait, who have a long history of designing migration solutions unique to every organization.


Tait Communications LogoLearn more about the benefits of Tait P25 here.

Or contact us to get in touch with an expert near you.

 

Comments

  1. Denis Marin says:

    “Greater coverage”???
    Only with a complete system analysis, and PROBABLY more sites and repeaters for a given perimeter.
    “Tait said if we bought their P25 radios we’d get better coverage than our analog system delivers.”
    Please, don’t put items in the Headlines that are misleading!

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