PMR – COST-OPTIMISED DIGITAL RADIO MARKET
advisor may require more work, but the value goes up for us and it also promotes better customer loyalty. ‘We or the reseller are more integrated into their business and that helps with understanding workflows and improves relationships. It also often creates an ongoing revenue stream for the reseller, rather than just a one-off sale, as there is a continuing upsell path,’ he points out.
We are finding that that all twoway radio sales are healthy across the board in all business sectors and in all areas of the country Ian Lockyer, marketing manager, Icom UK ADDED VALUE: Digital radio has enabled the development of a much wider range of applications, which not only allows customers to get more value out of their networks, but also means additional revenue opportunities for manufacturers and resellers
There is a school of thought that argues that cellular technology will make PMR obsolete, and there is clearly a movement among public safety agencies to move to broadband solutions. But IHS describes the market entry of LTE into the critical communications world as ‘slow and protracted until now’. Its June report noted: ‘Challenges surrounding spectrum remain at the forefront, especially for mission critical users in public safety; although similar for other mission critical industries such as utilities and transportation. The cost of spectrum also remains an impediment.’ IHS’s Thomas Lynch says: ‘As far as push to talk over cellular is concerned, the jury is still out as to how effective it will be. I don’t think it will account for more than 10% of the market over the next five years, but it does have the potential to eat into the low end installed analogue base such as basic security, construction and hotels. I am not raising any alarm bells just yet, but it is on the horizon.’ Nonetheless, there is a general recognition among PMR vendors that they need to embrace adjacent technologies and find ways to seamlessly interconnect with them. Most have incorporated Bluetooth and sometimes Wi-Fi into their systems already, for example. ‘4G LTE, Wi-Fi and PMR all have their place,’ observes Simoco’s Barend Gildenhuys, ‘and you’ve got to focus on your strengths, but the focus also has to be on how do all these technologies interoperate to provide multi-communication conduits. ‘There has been an LTE bubble
Kenwood
PMR in the wider ecosystem
You need to know your customers much better if you are to advise them more. Becoming a trusted advisor may require more work, but the value goes up for us Sean Fitzgerald, solutions marketing manager, Motorola Solutions hanging around our industry for a while, but we see a lot of life in PMR still and I think it will remain the dominant technology for private communications networks,’ says Gildenhuys. ‘LTE is great for fast data speeds, but it has a lot of challenges around coverage footprints.’ Hytera’s GS Kok says: ‘The PMR industry will always be around, as the need for voice will always be there, but you need to embrace data if you want your business to grow. Anybody that wants to survive in the future has to look at converging all of their products together, so they work seamlessly, or it will be difficult to expand their business.’ He adds that China was one of the countries looking to migrate to
4G for public safety and other sectors. ‘But it is now investing heavily in PDT, so they may think twice for the time being. They are pushing us hard to come up with a PDT solution.’ ‘There is an increasing need to integrate different technologies,’ agrees Motorola’s Sean Fitzgerald. ‘PMR has connected to fixed telephony systems for some time and radios are here to stay, but there are some users who want more integration across other networks and systems.’ Motorola has its WAVE technology to enable PMR users to talk to cellular and other systems and send data, for example. Other vendors have solutions providing this kind of
The PMR industry will always be around, as the need for voice will always be there, but you need to embrace data if you want your business to grow GS Kok, senior vice president, Hytera
convergence too, but it is not about replacing PMR systems. Rather, it is about extending their reach geographically and technically by enabling them to interwork across other communication systems. Tait’s UnifyVoice and UnifyVehicle are examples of this. The latter can track people and assets via BLE tags, for example, or access other data applications when tethered to the PMR network. Bishop reports that Tait’s UnifyVoice is being used on construction sites in conjunction with a DMR Tier III system to enable cellular phone users to communicate with radio users. But it also enables organisations to push data out to staff in the field to improve their situational awareness.
Threats to PMR
All the vendors Wireless spoke to seem pretty relaxed about the threat of rival technologies for now. Most observe, however, that the price pressure at the lower end of the market is intense.
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