Think Public Safety

The Evolution of Push-To-Talk Author: Mike Williams

Created Oct 05 2018, 2:52 PM by Paul Jeffs

My earliest memory of a ‘walkie-talkie’ is of a toy one I had as a child, and using it to communicate whilst out playing with my brother. It was great to just push the button and be able to talk.

With the availability of analogue and new digital radios, the situation is much the same. It still offered immediate connectivity through the ‘Push To Talk’ button. This immediate, fuss-free connectivity became essential for mission critical users such as Police, Fire or Ambulance who depend on them to help save lives.

Move into the early 2000s and cellphone users were asking to be able to connect ‘like radio users do’. This drove the development of new (infant) technology for providing a ‘PTT-like’ ability on 2G/2.5G cellphones but it was not reliable or robust enough for mission-critical applications.

Since then, cellular networks have rapidly advanced to 4G/LTE that supports bandwidth-intensive mobile data applications. PTT over broadband was developed to meet the needs of commercial users. PTT over mobile broadband has now been evolved to support mission-critical users too. Key to this evolution has been the development of international (3GPP) mission-critical standards:

Where does Motorola Solutions fit in? We continue to contribute to 3GPP standards related to mission-critical communications and lead the industry in standards implementation and compliance. Today’s mission-critical PTT users benefit from sub-second call set-up, high voice quality, numerous advanced features, as well as multimedia applications integrated on the same device.

What does this mean for Public Safety radio users? We recognise that when it comes to push-to-talk communications, one size, or in this case, one technology does not fit all. The right PTT communication platform should fit within your existing workflows, not the other way around. Our breadth of PTT solutions include PMR solutions (analogue and digital) such as ASTRO P25, TETRA and DMR standards as well as WAVE, our broadband PTT which operates over any broadband network.

The evolution of PTT has created a world of multiple technologies, and technologies that can interoperate. This enables each user to have the right technology for their situation. An example of the collaboration between technologies is Lowland Rescue:

Out in the field the rescue teams communicated by two-way radio and thanks to the interoperability provided by our WAVE solution, were able to keep a rescue-team member (at home) up-to-date with developments via a broadband connection.

Want to know more? Check out our new White Paper ‘The Evolution of PTT’