Raytheon Company developed a server-based system that links 4G LTE and P25 systems over the same network. This ensures that public safety officials can all stay connected when they need it most, whether a firefighter using a legacy FM handheld, an EMS technician with a P25 radio or a police officer with an LTE-linked mobile data computer in a squad car.
Suitable for a wide variety of interoperability applications, the new Raytheon server is scalable, from individual cities to large regions, as desired by each customer. The system uses gateways (such as Raytheon's recently-released ACU-5000) for local interoperability and also to convert non-IP communications (from radios, telephones, etc.) for transfer to the server. IP-based communications are brought directly to the server.
Raytheon's ACU (Audio Connect Unit) technology initiated the radio interoperability gateway concept in the late 1990s, and the new server system assists its users by incorporating all of the lessons learned since then. High among these is the understanding that during a disaster or other type of incident that requires inter-agency interoperability, most of the links will be local. The new system maintains this local interoperability, as well as the means to control it, even if infrastructure failure breaks the network link to the server.
