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Motorola’s Hold on Public-Sector Radios

My old stomping grounds, King County, Wash., is going to the voters for approval and financing for a new 800 MHz radio system. It will be interesting to see if the county is successful because of the price tag associated with the new system: $246 million. And I have not seen much marketing for the need to the general public.

See this article: Voters Face Levy for Better Emergency-Radio Network in King County, Wash.

What makes the price tag even more gagging is the cost of the system being replaced (in 1990 dollars) was $55 million or thereabouts. Which brings me to the reason for the blog post. Once you commit to the Motorola dragon, you are hooked for life. Go ahead and name five other large mobile radio providers in the United States? The only other major one that comes to mind for me is Ericsson.

It might be possible for King County to replace its existing Motorola system with another company, but the upfront cost would be very expensive. In my mind, there's not enough competition in the public radio spectrum and without that competition it allows a single company to dictate.

Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.
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