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March 04, 2014I’m just back from Alaska, where Motorola Solutions has boosted both customer satisfaction and staff productivity at the state’s largest ski resort with the installation of true high-speed, wall-to-wall Wi-Fi coverage in every guest room with plenty of bandwidth to ensure superior wireless performance, regardless of how many devices may be in use. “Most hotels and resorts offer free high-speed wireless service but aren’t always able to deliver on their ‘high-speed’ promise,” reads a story on the Wi-Fi project by TodayWirelessWorld.com. “Hotels and resorts can shake the stigma of sluggish WLAN signal strength when they stop trying to make a consumer-grade wireless router pull the weight. Instead, when a proven communications company can work directly with the establishment to find a solution, guests can enjoy
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February 26, 2014The big news from BearCom this month is our designation by Motorola Solutions as a Motorola Service Elite Specialist. This is a reflection of our ability to sell, design, deploy, support, and service the highest tiers of Motorola products and solutions as a direct representative. "Even though we sell only the highest-quality wireless communications equipment, we recognize that it sometimes needs service and repair," Jerry Denham, BearCom's President & CEO, said in announcing the designation. "Our Technical Services Group is staffed by more than 100 experienced, factory-trained technicians. It's their experience and expertise that are being recognized by BearCom's designation as a Motorola Service Elite Specialist." The designation, which is for the calendar year, will be used when BearCom acts as a Motorola subcontractor performing maintenance, installation, and warranty services for certain Motorola two-way radios, consoles,
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February 18, 2014While the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to be the subject of mind-boggling projections, major companies—including our partner Motorola Solutions—are working to develop new mobile technologies that will solve real-world business problems. "The 'Internet of Things'—technologists' vision of a network of billions of connected devices—has attracted the attention of a number of tech giants—including Cisco, Intel, and General Electric—all of whom have internal business units dedicated to building the infrastructure for that network," The Washington Post said this month in a report on the impact IoT will have on the training
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February 12, 2014Okay, so the recent Super Bowl wasn't much of a game. But there were plenty of noteworthy elements beyond the weather, the halftime show, and the event's largest-ever television audience. Security at the event was unprecedented—not just the day of the game, but the days and weeks leading up to it. A 2.5-mile chainlink fence surrounded the stadium, and there were helicopters, boat patrols, and an advanced system of IP video surveillance cameras. Video was processed by an artificial intelligence system able to spot unusual or suspicious behavior. These new technologies point to a surveillance industry that is rapidly growing and open to innovation. Organizations have used surveillance cameras to improve security efforts for decades, but the wired analog technology left much to be desired. Cameras had poor resolution and limited controls. Creating a tethered
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Accessories Analog Apps Batteries Construction CP200 CP200d Digital Effectiveness Efficiency Mobile Radio Motorola MOTOTRBO Noisy Environments Portable Radio Productivity Push-to-Talk Repeater Safety Speaker-Mics Text Messaging Trunking Two-Way Radios Walkie-Talkies Wireless Analog Technologies Motorola Solutions Two-Way Radio AccessoriesFebruary 05, 2014The construction industry is on a roll, according to experts who project construction starts will be up 9% this year, on top of last year's 5% gain. The biggest increases in activity will be in single-family housing, commercial building, and multifamily housing. Getting all that construction work done as efficiently and safely as possible will take top-floor communications capabilities, and that's where two-way radios come in. Two-way radios have long been popular tools on construction sites, and it's easy to see why. The one-to-many communications device makes it possible to alert entire groups of people to situations and facilitate their input on resolutions. Radio communications are immediate, which makes for quicker problem solving. Radios allow workers to be heard in noisy environments, and speaker-microphones keep their hands free
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January 28, 2014All around us, the wireless world is going digital. But organizations have questions about this breakthrough technology. To provide them with answers, BearCom and Motorola Solutions teamed up to create our Analog-to-Digital Migration Guide: "Five Reasons to Migrate to Digital Two-Way Radios." "A 'smart' revolution is transforming two-way radios," the guide begins. "Digital technology is opening the door to a host of useful web-based applications for two-way radios, even as it enhances capacity, coverage, audio quality, and battery life." Available as a free download from BearCom.com, the guide details how digital two-way radios offer additional functionality, greater efficiency, enhanced coverage, improved audio quality, and
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January 21, 2014Those of you who follow my adventures know that I can fly to wherever there's a communications emergency. Regular folks need a plane, and what do private pilots need? They need two-way radios, of course! A recent story on TodaysWirelessWorld.com explained how many private pilots wouldn't consider taking to the air without a backup radio. "Imagine what happens if an airplane's primary radio fails in flight," the story says. "You're thousands of feet in the air at the controls of an expensive aircraft with no ability to monitor weather and emergency channels or communicate with control towers, ground crews, and other pilots. Getting down safely suddenly becomes more theoretical than a sure thing." The story goes on to review some key considerations for a pilot using a handheld aircraft radio as a backup:
- Mind your power supply. "While rechargeable Lithium-Ion batteries usually
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3M Peltor Accessories Analog Apps BearCom BridgeWave Call Boxes Cambium Networks Cell Phones David Clark Digital Eventide Extranets Facebook Firetide Icom America IMPACT Radio Accessories IP Kent Huffman LDV LinkedIn Mesh Networks Mobile Broadband Mobile Command Centers Motorola MOTOTRBO NeoTerra Systems NOC OTTO Panasonic Point-to-Point Bridges Preventive Maintenance Pryme Push-to-Talk Pyramid Rent Repairs Social Media Sonetics Sony Sprint Nextel TABLETmedia Today's Wireless World TurboVUi Twisted Pair Twitter Two-Way Radio Rentals Two-Way Radios Ubiquiti Verizon Vertex Standard Video Surveillance Walkie-Talkies Wireless WLAN YouTube Analog Technologies Motorola Solutions Two-Way Radio AccessoriesJanuary 07, 2014Some companies publish catalogs filled with little more than pretty pictures and glowing product descriptions. Not BearCom. Our 2014 Wireless Products, Services & Solutions Guide, which is headed to customers early next week, is filled with detailed information about BearCom's capabilities and scope, as well as updates on the latest innovations in wireless technology. "In this issue, we explore how digital technology is transforming two-way radios," said BearCom's Chief Marketing Officer, Kent Huffman, who oversees the annual project. "That section includes information on the benefits of switching to digital and how backward-compatible equipment makes an analog-to-digital migration smoother." Huffman added, "The guide also serves as a reminder of how BearCom's strong partner relationships and our 26 branch offices nationwide keep us positioned to offer wireless communications solutions of
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BearCom's 2013 Marked by New Products, Operations Center, Maintenance Plans, and the Motorola CP200d
December 31, 2013This first day of the new year seems like the perfect time to look back at all that happened at BearCom during 2013, a year that brought new products and solutions, an award for our BC130 two-way radio, a revamped online magazine, and a potential game changer from Motorola Solutions. It was just last month that we announced the opening of the BearCom Network Operations Center (NOC), which can monitor customers' Motorola MOTOTRBO systems around the clock. It provides system diagnostics, real-time visibility, and proactive response to any issues that arise. With the NOC, BearCom can offer our Constant Service Presence to detect any issues, evaluate problems, and even dispatch technicians. "Using the NOC allows us to collect metrics on such -
December 24, 2013Even superheroes need helpers, and today I want to congratulate one who responded beautifully to a communications emergency in downtown Fairbanks, Alaska. His name is John Benevento, and thanks to "Benny," the clock tower carillon in Golden Heart Plaza plays Christmas music instead of two-way radio traffic from the city's public safety agencies. According to the Fairbanks News-Miner, the carillon designed to fill the downtown square with music was beset by problems almost since the local Rotary Club put it up in 1990. Those issues, several of which were familiar to Alaskans, kept the tower quiet most of the time. Electrical conduits froze. Then an earthquake snapped the underground cable that ran to the tower from the nearby Gold Exchange restaurant. The cable was replaced by a microwave signal from another downtown building, but interference came from an unlikely source: the remote starting systems Alaskans use to warm up their frozen vehicles. Benevento told the News-Miner