Read Full Article | View Source
BFN (Before FirstNet) and before Next-Generation 9-1-1 (NG911), the public-safety communications world was fairly organized. A few companies offered complete systems consisting of base stations, mobiles and portables, and radio consoles. Along with their approved suppliers, they could provide antennas, coax cable, towers, generators, and other elements needed to ensure their systems were built and operated as promised.
Other vendors could and did bid on pieces and parts of systems, and many were successful in convincing some public-safety agencies to break out mobiles, portables, and sometimes base stations from system-level bids. Some Land Mobile Radio (LMR) vendors added features and functions over and above what was included in, for example, P25 standards, so competitors could not meet the same specifications with their products. Thus in the early days, the LMR vendor world was divided into system suppliers and device suppliers…
