Your team is spread out all over the building, site, or city, and you need to talk to them frequently throughout the work day. Dialing on the phone is time-consuming and isn’t practical when contacting more than one or two people at a time. Push-to-Talk (PTT) devices, such as two-way radios or walkie-talkies, are purpose-built for that application. These devices have continued to evolve with digital radios, LTE radios, WIFI radios, and even Satellite radios. Each of them allows one push for everyone in the group to hear and be able to respond to your call.
As stated, a wide variety of PTT devices are available, each with unique capabilities empowering your team. One size does not fit all. Yet, there are times when calls need to go out to people regardless of the type of PTT device they carry. There is also the time people without PTT devices need to contact someone carrying a radio. Today, this is possible, but how should you determine what you need?
Go down the CLEAR path. Coverage, Loading, Expansion, Attributes, and ROI – CLEAR!
Let me explain.
Coverage
When you think of coverage, the first thing is to define where they will be – where they will be most of the time and where they will sometimes go. A job site, such as a construction site or event location, will have most people working there. But occasionally, it is likely that someone will need to go off-site to pick up a person, materials, or equipment. A bus company has its normal routes. However, a special charter may take them far outside the regular routes. A school system may have both campus and bus coverage needs. A good understanding of the overall coverage requirements is key.
Don’t stop there. The next thing to consider is the importance, or likelihood, of needing to contact someone anywhere in the coverage area. You may need to make trade-offs between the cost of ensuring coverage and the importance of that location, such as terrain and whether your inside buildings will affect the reliability of coverage.
Sometimes you’ll find that a mix of technologies provides the coverage you need. WIFI for inside the building. Satellite for extreme remote locations. UHF or VHF for campus or regional coverage. LTE for nationwide coverage. It may not be the wisest decision to try and extend a technology beyond its useful use range.
Loading
The number of people and the manner in which they use the system drives the system design. A system with a central point, like a dispatcher, talking out to all other users is a fundamentally different design than one with the same number of users with twenty smaller groups talking among themselves.
It is also essential to identify any group that must have priority over all others. It will be necessary to design the system differently for this priority group.
Understanding the loading per technology is important if you are considering different technologies to achieve the coverage you need.
Another factor to consider is how the communication among users of the various technologies is desired to happen. Will there be no cross-technology communication required? Will, a function like a dispatcher act as the go-between? Or, will direct communication between them be enabled? A good grasp of how you see this working for your team is fundamental in sizing the system.
Expansion
Your needs today must be understood, but so should your growth plans. If you don’t see much growth, then design for today. But, if you see expansion in any dimension – coverage or loading – identifying it now may allow for easier expansion down the road. Take the time to think about how your operation will function down the road.
What can easily unfold is a hodge-podge implementation of various solutions. When this happens, each small constituency of users’ needs may be met but pulling them together didn’t materialize. As you understand how you want the users to interact, interconnect technology, like Icom’s CONNECT Solution, can be implemented.
Attributes
Beyond the scale of the solution you need, keep in mind of other features that can benefit you. Security can be found in both the system and the PTT device.
Safety features are primarily in the device, while the system may enable some preemption. Texting, individual calling, and caller ID may or may not be found on all devices, so knowing if you need them helps select the appropriate unit for you. Other features to consider are the audio quality such as loudness, noise-canceling, equalizing, durability, and water/dust resistance; display (with or without) – some displays are brighter or can work in the sunlight or dark; number and function of buttons, such as an emergency button. Accessories like speaker mics, headphones, spare batteries, antennas, and chargers are often overlooked. Many features could be helpful, so it’s easy to impulse buy. Think these through beforehand.
ROI
Return on Investment is determining whether the value justifies the cost? First, assess the value in terms of what the solution can bring to your organization. Is the system nice to have used by just a few, or is it mission-critical essential tool used across your team? What harm does it mitigate or efficiencies does it bring? Try to quantify these as best you can.
Then you can look at the cost side of the equation. There are the initial capital expenses (CAPEX) and the ongoing operational expenses (OPEX). Although not always true, you’ll find if you save on the CAPEX, you’ll pay in the OPEX. This may be the right approach for your organization, but if you plan on using the solution for longer, a better quality product is a better bet. Something to watch for is new, never heard of brands that have a too-good-to-be-true product at a super low price. You may find that if these didn’t sell as well as the manufacturer planned, they might disappear from the market, and you’ll be stuck with a one-off product and no support. Buy from established brands with a quality reputation.
Organizations needing immediate, voice-based communications among individuals or groups on a team need Push-to-Talk devices in their arsenal. Determining how to scope it requires thought and often the advice of those who’ve wrestled with this before. If you have questions and want some help thinking it through, let us know by contacting Icom.
If you’re interested in a deeper dive, download our Scoping a Successful Radio System Deployment ebook.
