Keeping the mind up with IP technology - Part 1

The internet changed the world. We can find information, gain visibility and communicate - basically anytime, anywhere. Not unlike why our predecessors built radio networks in the first place.

Indeed, Radio-over-IP (RoIP) could be just the stimulus for a much-needed evolution in the way we go about our business.

Every once and a while a ‘disruptive technology’ comes along and changes things - for good. RoIP has the potential to be such a technology but I’ll look into the direct benefits and its implementation in the second part of this article.

First, let me take a broader view, as there is much we can learn and use to further our own success.

In our world of engineering and RF, we (quite rightly) think first and foremost in technology, specifically in what one may call ‘encapsulated technology’.

This system does this, that system does that. We think in limitations, because there are limitations to the technology. We seek, engineer, source, provide and operate ‘solutions’ around those technologies and limitations.

The internet, on the other hand, is an organic beast. Its technical achievement was to create the internet protocol (IP) and allow disparate and existing elements to work with each other.

It was a major change in mindset: packets versus circuits. Structure versus application. Possibilities versus solutions.

Limitations are no longer structural, but down to individual elements. Improving on these limitations requires an understanding of the whole, the elements and the interactions.

Today’s unprecedented level and breadth of collaboration has re-established a most important criterion: The ‘what’. What am I doing? What do I need? What do I want to achieve?

Only after the ‘what’ is established does one consider the other criteria. And that, quite frankly, is where we need to change the most.

We need to re-establish the ‘what’ before we determine the ‘how’. Basic, sound engineering. Yet knowledge, commitment and cooperation have become inextricably seen as a means to an end, bound in time.

Mutually beneficial collaboration requires more than working together - it requires a common and ongoing understanding.

We all need to do our part in addressing the whole, the elements and their interactions. And we need to do it in structured, engineering fashion.

Too often we assume the ‘why’ and place it outside the ‘what’. No wonder we constantly try to solve an equation with too many variables - variables we need to address individually.

Interestingly enough, we have the best tools at hand and they are the engineering tools; systems thinking and systems engineering.

Just as centre frequency, bandwidth, quality and noise figure are requirements of a filter, so are costs, returns, technology and infrastructure characteristics of our system of ‘radio network’.

Just as resistors, capacitors and inductors are part of the filter design, so too are advice, knowledge transfer and HW/SW elements parts of our system design.

No doubt you will, by now, be asking yourself: What does this have to do with RoIP? How does this apply to my radio network?

It has everything to do with it. RoIP is a new and, arguably, revolutionary application of technology, a paradigm shift.

No longer can we see radio networks as disparate systems. Our radio systems are already becoming part of a larger, almost virtual network. Don’t think so? What about the officer with a two-way radio and a mobile ...

IP technology will undoubtedly change the fundamental structure of radio networks. These networks will no longer be encapsulated.

IP networks will ultimately replace the majority of all back-haul, control and operations infrastructure. It just makes financial sense.

Leased lines and dedicated links can be replaced by cheap and ubiquitous IP networks, be it internet or intranet. Operations will be able to access radios of different formats from one central site. Fleet operations and radio management will be consolidated within easy-to-use applications on PC-based workstations.

Regardless of their underlying standards and formats, radios will become nodes on the fringe of an IP infrastructure.

For sure, specific radio technologies will continue to be used for specific radio communications. Here, RoIP will be deployed specifically for, and with, direct benefits.

Yet, the big change is that the RF interface and its communications format will become a function within a large, non-homogeneous communications network. Indeed, the user will be redefined.

With RoIP, any user or any device, anywhere, can connect to any IP-enabled radio, be it an analog VHF/UHF transceiver, a TETRA radio or whatever.

All the user or device fundamentally requires is the ability to access and communicate radio-specific data via an IP network - a PC, a smartphone, a Wi-Fi-enabled device, a smart sensor, a wired alarm system, a UMTS module.

The possibilities, to say the least, are vast.

As much as radio networks and their application will change, so should we take this opportunity to rethink the way we do business. Radio-over-IP could be just the stimulus we need to review how we go about defining, providing and engineering solutions.

As with the internet, our perception of needs and values has changed. Where we used to buy a book, we now search for a specific piece of information. Where we used to buy an entire 12-volume encyclopedia, we now use bookmarks in our browser.

The analogies are clear. Instruments and devices provided a set of functions targeted at a range of users. ‘Solutions’ relieved us of the need to research, define and build our own ‘encyclopedia’. Inherent to both was a clear, finite view of time and direction.

We can improve on that.

Solutions can become ongoing, without having to outsource core competencies. We understand the system we engineer as comprising needs and objectives, technology and infrastructure.

Products, knowledge and consultation become individual, measurable elements of that system. Value is measured in both directions, improving business and replacing vague and ambiguous overheads with clear costs and returns.

In theory, all very nice, but how does this work in the real world?

First, we consider our perspective and understanding of the ‘system’ we are working on. We look at both the big and the little pictures.

We, together, define the ‘what’ before we define the ‘how’. We think independently of the traditional roles and objectives of user, operator and vendor.

We define and communicate a common framework of needs, objectives and constraints. We provide modular, fitting and ‘evolvable’ solution elements. In short, we engage in ongoing, and mutually beneficial, systems engineering.

In concrete terms, operators will migrate their radio networks towards RoIP, reduce costs, further their operational capabilities and provide new and revenue-generating capabilities. Vendors provide RoIP elements that are readily integrated and built upon.

They continue to develop their RoIP offerings based on their learnings with the client. In turn, they provide advice and knowledge transfer.

Users will use the new possibilities and capabilities and form and evolve applications.

Just how that works with RoIP and radio networks is what we will discuss in detail in part two of this article.