ABSTRACT
A mobile voice radio is the most important piece of equipment a law enforcement officer will use
. Having
a functional voice radio system must be the highest IT priority for a law enforcement agency.
A radio is a vital tool in coordinating the police response to routine and priority calls from the public, as well as serving as an invaluable information resource (Figure 10.1). Moreover, the radio is critical to officer safety as it provides a means for cautioning field officers as they travel to calls, and allows the responders to call for assistance. If this is doubted, one only has to look at the local media headlines which appear on a regular basis throughout North America that dramatize how a radio failure led to a dangerous set of events. All radio vendors have anecdotes of how angry police managers, unions, or line officers have gone to the media to criticize their products, when often the root cause was an inadequate system design. These same headlines rarely appear when a server or a mobile computer system fails to operate.
