SECURITY
Digital Mobile Radio is now an established technology with more and more end users choosing to upgrade their existing analogue systems. Digital radio provides many advantages for security and facilities teams when compared to analogue, allowing the functionality of multiple devices (such as pagers and telephones) to be integrated into a single device, even when ATEX certified equipment is a requirement. External systems such as fire alarm panels can also be integrated with digital radio allowing important information to be passed to all users simultaneously, something critically important for security and facilities teams. Digital radio has also been shown to give increased audio performance in high noise environments and in low signal areas.
HOW FEASIBLE IS IT? While the technology provides
significant benefits, there are still certain key factors that need to be considered when migrating an existing system from analogue to digital.
The first of these is “is it feasible to upgrade the whole system in one go or by departments or user groups?”
While the first option is clearly the easiest for the supplier, the latter is often the end user’s choice, particularly for larger systems. This requires careful planning to ensure that the users with digital radios can still communicate with their colleagues on the existing analogue system and that any alarm system integration can still alert all system users.
MIX IT UP Repeaters that can be used in
mixed mode (both analogue and digital) allow users to upgrade their infrastructure whilst maintaining communication when the terminals are upgraded. Any existing antenna systems, RF combining or bi- directional amplifiers can be re-used with the new digital equipment.
Although this is straightforward for voice communications, the presence of interfaces to external systems need additional consideration.
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Can the user groups who need to receive the information be migrated together? If this is not possible, there may be a need to temporarily install additional equipment to provide an interface to both systems.
It is almost certain that any interconnections between the external system and the new digital radios will need to be amended to suit the different types of accessory connector used. This would allow testing to be carried out pre-installation.
to provide the same connectivity. If all the sites cannot be migrated at the same time, then maintaining the connectivity between the existing and new systems needs to be considered and planned. This is even more important if the links between sites are provided by a third party.
TRUNKED CHALLENGES The challenges when dealing with
analogue trunked radio systems are different to those for conventional systems. Radio users share channels rather than having allocated channels for each user group, so migration by user group is more difficult to implement. Trunked radio systems generally need to have the radio base stations and controllers replaced in one operation as the terminals cannot easily switch between different systems.
One solution often adopted is to replace the terminals first that can use the existing infrastructure but are compatible with the new system being proposed. This also allows the supplier to configure the new system so that it can match the functionality and operation of the existing system and prepare the terminal configurations so that the switch- over can be as seamless as possible.
CHANNEL SHARING With the arrival of DMR Trunked
“EXTERNAL SYSTEMS
SUCH AS FIRE ALARM PANELS CAN ALSO BE INTEGRATED
WITH DIGITAL RADIO
ALLOWING IMPORTANT INFORMATION TO BE PASSED TO ALL USERS SIMULTANEOUSLY.”
Are there a number of sites that need to communicate with each other? Analogue systems could use leased line circuits to carry audio between sites whereas digital radio requires a broadband connection
radio systems and the availability of systems that allow channel sharing without dedicated control channels and controllers (such as Capacity Plus and XPT), there is now a much broader range of options available. With the right terminals and infrastructure, it is possible to move from a conventional analogue system to digital, then via channel sharing to a trunked radio solution in stages as the system requirements change and evolve over time.
The challenges of migration should not be taken lightly but with good planning and the involvement of the security teams throughout the process it is a challenge that can bring real benefits to security teams, and the assets they protect.
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