Although it is too soon to tell if public safety agencies will embrace it, Icom announced on May 17, 2006 at IWCE (International Wireless Communications Expo) in Las Vegas a line of 6.25 KHz ultra-narrowband technology developed jointly with Kenwood.
The Icom digital radios consume 1/4th the frequency spectrum occupied by the current wideband technology, and the FCC has indicated that existing licensees of wideband (25 KHz wide channel) frequencies will be able to modify their licenses to gain as many as 4 channels for each of their current wideband channels. The mandated shift to narrowband (12 KHz wide channels) does *not* provide any more channels to a licensee, which obviously is not attractive to public safety and critical infrastructure users.
Although testing is not complete in our mind, the Icom ultra-narrowband digital radios use an FM technology that provides similar distance and geographic coverage to existing wideband analog (25 KHz wide channels) radios. One of our concerns for our public safety customers is that as they move to the mandated narrowband (12 KHz wide channels) analog radios they actually lose distance and geographic coverage – approximately 30% but coverage analysis is necessary to provide a real estimate. The new radios potentially provide a solution to that degradation, as well as additional FCC licensed channels!
We are acquiring the new radios for testing, and as we verify their capabilities and quality, we will be able to recommend them for our customers. Pricing is below current P25 Digital radios. Contact us for more information.
-National Interop Staff
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