2021-06-21

LA-RICS Hopes P25 Network will be Ready in 2023, Executive Director Says

Source: Urgentcomm
Curated by: Gert Jan Wolf - Editor-in Chief for The Critical Communications Review

Efforts to deploy the P25 network for the Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications System (LA-RICS) are continuing, with the land-mobile-radio (LMR) project is about three years behind schedule after being delayed further by a confluence of events last year, according to LA-RICS Executive Director Scott Edson.

LA-RICS had contracted with Motorola Solutions to finish the narrowband LMR system last year, but only 46 of the 60 sites for the network are done, Edson said. Now, the target date for Motorola Solutions to complete the P25 system and for LA-RICS to accept the new LMR network has been pushed to 2023, he said.

“We were supposed to be done by now, but fires, floods, the pandemic, resources, supply-chain issues and some preventable delays have further delayed the program,” Edson said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications.

Edson declined to elaborate on the “preventable delays” he referenced.

Once a cell site is optimized and tested, LA-RICS member agencies are able to leverage the coverage provided by the 80% of the P25 network that is done, but they will not be able to completely switch to the regional LMR network—and retire their respective existing radio systems—until Motorola Solutions has finished all 60 sites, Edson said.