Congressional Hearing Probes P25 Success

As part of an on-going effort to question the interoperability of public safety radio networks, the U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing last week to discuss the status of Project 25, a 1989 plan to standardize digital radio technologies. During a previous House subcommittee hearing, witnesses disagreed on the current status of Project 25 implementation, and noted that $2 billion in federal grant spending on interoperability had failed to achieve its goals. That earlier hearing generated several follow-up questions from Congress on whether there truly was competition among manufacturers of P25 gear, and led to last week’s follow-up hearing.

At the hearing, Zetron Inc. president Ellen O’Hara said she was concerned about the slow adoption of a console interface standard, which has delayed customer adoption of P25. She recommended federal action to hasten P25 adoption, by setting a deadline within 12 months, after which federal grants could only purchase open standard P25 gear.

Houston (Tex.) deputy director of radio communications technology Tom Sorley told the sub-committee that competition among P25 equipment vendors, “is hampered by a lack of understanding by public safety agencies.” He recommended forming an education group to help agencies work through the issues of implementing P25 radio systems. Sorley also said competition is not encouraged by equipment manufacturers. Competition is not encouraged by manufacturers. “P25 manufacturers often try to sell proprietary features that reside on top of the basic P25 operation of the radios in order to force future sales of their products,” Sorley testified.

Russ Sveda, manager of radio for the U.S. Department of the Interior, said his agency has invested 14 years in P25. “We are still not able to design and install a Project 25 compliant ‘system’ without significant engineering and customization,” he said.

Lastly, Sr. Dir. of ARINC Public Safety Communications Marvin Ingram testified, “Finalizing communications standards and adoption of compliance and conformance testing is imperative to fully solving the interoperability issue.” Like previous witnesses, he pointed to delayed completion of standards as the cause for high costs and today’s lack of full radio interoperability.

Download (pdf) the testimony from witnesses here, including an excellent summary of P25 history, and surf the hearing’s Web page here.