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May 22, 2013Nearly five months after the FCC's narrowbanding deadline, people are still talking about the mandate for users of two way radios to convert to 12.5 kHz technology. Among them is Al Ittner, Senior Manager of Spectrum Strategy for Motorola Solutions. Ittner was in Houston last week to speak at the Utilities Telecom Council's annual conference. His topic was "Narrowbanding: I Missed the Deadline. Now What?" The narrowbanding mandate from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is familiar to most everyone who works with two way radios. After all, the FCC began the narrowbanding initiative way back in 1992 in order to increase capacity and efficiency for the industrial/business and public safety radio pools in the private land mobile radio services category. In its simplest form, the mandate requires public agencies and companies that use two way radios to upgrade their technology. The FCC set the deadline of January 1, 2013,
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4G Analog Apps BearCom Colleges and Universities Construction Data Applications Digital Education FCC Federal Communications Commission Government GPS IP K-12 Schools Land Mobile Radio LMR LTE M2M Motorola Narrowbanding Public Safety Retail Safety Security Text Messaging Two-Way Radios Video Surveillance Walkie-Talkies Wireless Analog Technologies K-12 Schools and Universities Motorola SolutionsJanuary 15, 2013
Analyzing Wireless Trends
Again this year, I asked Jerry Denham, BearCom's President & CEO, for his thoughts about the coming year in wireless communications. And while some of his predictions reflect those he made a year ago, there are several new ones worthy of discussion as 2013 shifts into high gear: 1. Narrowbanding will continue to be an issue, despite the passing of the January 1, 2013 deadline set by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The massive effort to convert users of the private land mobile radio spectrum to 12.5 kHz narrowband technology is not yet complete. Thousands of two-way radio users clearly missed the deadline set by the FCC to obtain new licenses. And though many have filed applications that now are being processed and others were granted waivers, there are still thousands of users nationwide who failed to act. While there are indications that strict enforcement may be some months off, we know it will come. We're already working