Motorola Eyes Public Safety Networks, Muni Wi-Fi, Executive Says
Motorola looks to grow its business further by partnering with cities on public safety networks and municipal mobile broadband, said Scott French, vice president of Wireless Mobility Solutions. The manufacturer also plans to make inroads in markets like utilities, transportation and human services, he said in an interview.
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The company is very actively partnering with local government customers in the public safety network buildout, French said. Motorola is in discussions with cities of all sizes about the delivery of the systems, he said. But it’s a matter of economics, he said. The company is targeting cities with the densest population that can support the user profile, he said. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution due to different levels of access to spectrum, he said. LTE is well suited for public safety and the government should take advantage of that, he said.
Popular public safety applications like video surveillance, mobile video streaming, real-time computer-aided dispatch, e-ticketing and biometric identification are expected to be the popular applications running on public safety network, he said. Motorola is working with a large number of the 21 jurisdictions that are eligible to apply for NTIA’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program funding, he said. Motorola has asked the FCC to impose only minimal conditions on waivers granted to local governments and public safety agencies seeking to make early use of 700 MHz spectrum (CD April 8 p1). NTIA opened a new application window from June 1 to July 1 specific to public safety agencies that received the waivers.
Meanwhile, municipal wireless networks, which have failed in some cities, are expected to see some uptake again, helped by Wi-Fi standard updates, better business models and the proliferation of devices, French said. The arrival of 802.11n boosts capacity, performance and economics of unlicensed networks, he said. The understanding of how to manage various components through a single network management platform has improved, he said. The value of a consolidated broadband wireless IP network and the number of anchor tenants and applications that can ride over it presents compelling economics, he said. Cities and service providers should focus on understanding the potential return on investment of the network and the applications running on it, he said.
Wi-Fi standard 802.11n also helped the company gain some traction in education, French said. He cited the expansion of mobile and distance learning applications along with operational applications like video surveillance for campus police. The company is partnering with Safari Montage, a provider of video content management in the education space, he noted. Motorola is also working with suppliers of traffic management systems, he said. A challenge in this market is the cost of backhauling traffic data back to a central management system, he acknowledged. Smart utility metering is an area with significant partnership opportunity with municipalities, he said.