Projecting the technological evolution of the private land mobile radio services

The author briefly summarizes the difficulty of administering the rapidly evolving technology of private land mobile radio services, draws a distinction between the cellular and private land mobile regulatory and evolutionary environments, and identifies more efficient spectrum utilization as a major challenge for the private land mobile sector. A three-stage approach is described which would allow enhancement of spectrum efficiency in the private land mobile sector. The first two stages would be especially appropriate if an extended delay in implementing digital technologies in that sector is anticipated. The first stage could involve relatively minor reconfigurations of existing hardware and operations. The second stage would require design, construction, and implementation of enhanced channel- and function-trunking in a distributed network environment. It is concluded that the most urgent question which the private land mobile sector must address is whether these changes should be implemented before, during, or after a conversion away from the current underlying analog format to a digital one