Radio Standard

Project 25

Developed by the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials International (APCO), P25 is a radio standard that is the preferred choice for many public safety organizations for ensuring inter-agency cooperation.
Omnitronics has worked directly with a number of P25 radio manufacturers including Eclipse, ICOM, Kenwood, Simoco and Tait to develop a P25 interface that ensures interoperability and provides users with optimal network choice.

Whilst P25 systems may not be the best fit for all organizations, there are many benefits of utilizing this standard – the main one being improved interoperability. Since P25 is an open standard, multiple protocols (both analog and digital) and manufacturers can be used on the same network. This is a major benefit especially for those organizations within the public safety sector, as different agencies and neighbouring jurisdictions can communicate with each other even if they have purchased their equipment from different manufacturers. This level of interoperability lead to some of the other benefits of P25 CSSI, such as flexibility and cost-effectiveness, as organizations now have more options to select the best equipment for their operation. Any manufacturer that provides a CSSI interface to P25 standards can connect to Omnitronics Dispatch, further reinforcing the benefits of enhanced interoperability and flexibility within the P25 standard. Our dispatch powerhouse, omnicore has a choice of networking options as well that further adds compatibility.

P25 is not only cost efficient because of its flexibility, but also has enhanced spectrum efficiency. Phase 2 of P25 provides two effective channels per 12.5khz bandwidth, and is backwards compatible with Phase 1 radios. This allows phase 2 radio users to operate on a phase 1 network. Some implementation costs can be reduced with utilizing P25 as well. Not only can the flexibility of P25 assist businesses to stay on budget, however some implementation costs can be reduced when utilising a P25 system, such as vocoders not needing to be located at each dispatch operator position, rather at the gateway itself.

Too Much Choice?

• Cost Savings  due to the P25 vocoder being centrally located at the gateway not at each dispatch operator position.
• Multiple protocols (both analog and digital) and manufacturers can be used on the same network.
• Radios can be accessed simultaneously by a Mixture of Dispatch Consoles.
• The cost and complexity of the Dispatch GUI is reduced by loading time critical and proprietary functions to the Gateway.
• Organizations have the flexibility to Change Protocols or Radio Manufacturers.
• 3^rd Party Integrators such as IP Voice Recorders can interface to the Omnitronics network, not all the differing interfaces.
• Choice of networking options to ensure network flexibility and resilience.

Omnitronics has developed a range of interfaces for differing P25 manufacturers, including both proprietary and P25 standard features.