2024–25 Thought Leaders: Sandra Wendelken

What opportunities do you predict for the growth of your industry in 2025?

There are several catalysts for the continuing growth of the critical communications industry. The increase in the number of natural disasters highlights the importance of LMR (land mobile radio) technology, a reliable method of communications during emergencies. In addition, organisations continue to upgrade their mission-critical networks with data capabilities and enhanced interoperable features. Finally, new services are being rolled out to boost the security and reliability of mission-critical networks.

With Australians having several major telco and technology outages over the past 12 months, what is your company doing to enable more resilient communications solutions?

LMR networks are generally built to 99.999% (five nines) reliability. During and after many natural disasters, commercial cellular system failures often occur. Having a parallel LMR voice-centric network helps avoid a total operational blackout during emergency scenarios.

There is no doubt that broadband technology is important for critical communications solutions. But the criticality of voice in industries where wireless users face life and death situations continues to drive technology decisions. That is why Tait continues to innovate around mission-critical voice. From the TP9800 multiband portable radios to the multimode TB9400 P25/DMR base station with industry-leading RF performance and flexibility to the TP9900 multiband, multiprotocol P25 and digital mobile radio (DMR) radio, Tait is proud to be a reliable mission-critical solutions provider.

What are the biggest challenges or threats facing your industry in 2025?

The lack of interoperability is one big challenge. Emergency responders — public safety, critical communications organisations such as utilities and transportation agencies, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) — need to share vital data and voice to respond to day-to-day incidents and large-scale emergencies. Emergency responders often cannot talk to some parts of their own agencies — let alone communicate with colleagues in neighbouring cities, counties or states.

Interoperability is multifaceted. Governance, including a structure and procedures for coordinating with neighbouring, regional and state groups, is critical for interoperability success. Governance must be established before an emergency occurs so leaders are familiar with each other and the procedures in place to ensure seamless communication.

Training is also key to interoperability and goes hand in hand with governance. Once groups have established procedures and coordination in place, they should conduct training exercises to practise the plans and fix anything that is not working well. Training exercises also help leaders become more familiar with each other and build trust.

Emergency managers should also ensure interoperable communications technologies and procedures are used often so there are no surprises during an event. Coordinating planned events and multi-agency events can help everyone feel comfortable with interoperability tools.

The final aspect of interoperability is technology. Tait Communications can provide both P25 and DMR standards-based open, flexible solutions that interoperate with other vendors’ equipment built to those same standards. In addition, Tait’s TP9900 multiband and multiprotocol P25 radio allows a first responder agency needing interoperability between P25 and DMR to achieve it with a mode change. The TP9900 will bridge the interoperability needs of both P25 and DMR users who need to communicate with each other.

Cybersecurity threats, which continue to increase, are another challenge. Public safety agencies, utilities, transportation agencies, and oil and gas firms are all vulnerable to bad actors around the globe. Tait Communications is seeing more requests for support from various ICT functions for IP-connected devices and applications. Our customers and partners are asking how they can better understand their security posture, and it starts with visibility.

The Tait Communications External Threat Assessment scorecard is a solution to help customers address the market need and pain point of cybersecurity threat visibility and to better understand where the vulnerabilities lie. The scorecard is available in two forms: a basic assessment and a comprehensive version with a cybersecurity score, threat indicators, a measure of vulnerabilities and more. The service will roll out in coming months for critical communications organisations.

As the use of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to spread, how big a role do you see this technology playing in the critical comms industry?

AI will play an increasingly important part in all industries, but particularly the critical comms sector. Tait Communications is actively engaged in developing solutions that leverage AI for near real-time response systems. The company is taking a platform-based approach that would allow simultaneous ingestion of multiple data sources. Given the evolving use cases for AI, Tait’s overarching governance, for starters, will be built around ISO 42001, the global standard for AI management systems.

Sandra Wendelken is the Strategy and Insights Manager at Tait Communications, with several decades of experience in the LMR and wireless industry. Before joining Tait in 2023, she was a senior research analyst at market research firm IDC from 2020 to 2023 covering B2B and consumer wireless technology. She was also editor of Radio Resource International and Mission Critical Communications magazines from 2006 to 2020, where she closely tracked the US and global mission-critical communications industries.