Wide Area Radio
What is PassPort Trunking?
Dispatch Networking and a Whole Lot More!
A radio dispatcher is in charge of his fleet widely scattered among 10 counties covering nearly half a state. When the dispatcher radios the technicians, the call, made over a multi-site networked trunked radio system, is heard simultaneously by every radio in the fleet. Later, a service technician makes a call trying to locate a part he knows must be on one of the trucks in the fleet. His call is heard by all the radios in the talk group, even though they are on 8 different sites in the radio network and spread over an area far too wide to be covered by any one tower site. Each networked dispatch radio call is set up in less than half a second and is completed automatically without any end-user interface. As vehicles move among areas of coverage of the various network sites, they seamlessly register onto each new site, and the network is continually updated on the location of every radio in each talk group. Reliable and efficient Wide Area dispatch Networking, as described in the preceding paragraph, has been the missing technology used for SMR trunked radio systems since the infancy of trunking. Many SMR operators have multiple sites with very large coverage footprints. Some have wanted to work with operators having complimentary coverage areas. However, users could not easily take advantage of this large coverage footprint for dispatch purposes because the sites were not networked together, allowing radios on various sites to be part of the same dispatch conversation.
PassPort is . . .
. . . a trunking protocol that improves on the many shortcomings of widely used popular trunking protocols. While many of these met the needs of early users, its limitations became very apparent to those wanting to use their radios beyond the bounds of those early systems. Wireless users demand more features, coverage and services from today’s wireless provider. Networking of multiple sites is an important element in the feature mix necessary to meet the needs of today’s wireless customer.LTR, for instance, had a severely limited ID code structure and no inherent provision for unique ID's on a per-radio basis. Additionally, there is no protocol specific support for roaming or networking. These basic shortcomings have led to numerous stop-gap efforts to improve and enhance the functionality of LTR systems, but none have adequately addressed the fundamental requirements to provide Wide-Area Dispatch Networking and seamless roaming between sites. PassPort is the trunking protocol that builds on the most desirable elements of LTR and addresses the needs of radio users with:
-
wide area dispatch networking
-
seamless roaming
-
positive system management
-
access control
-
short message service
-
and many other enhanced features.
Smart Dispatch
PassPort protocol radios take advantage of Trident’s Smart Dispatch networking mode. In Smart Dispatch, only those sites in the network with mobiles from the in use talk group logged onto them, are used during a dispatch call. This makes the most efficient use of the available spectrum in the network by bringing up the minimum number of channels needed to complete the call to each mobile in the talk group.
PassPort Network Security
To eliminate the problem eavesdropping every PassPort mobile
radio contains an imbedded ESN (Electronic Serial Number). This ESN
cannot be modified. Every time a radio registers onto a site
the ESN is validated. Every time a radio transmits on the network,
it sends a unique MIN (Mobile Identity Number). These multiple
levels of identifying and tracking every radio in a network provide
a high level of system security.
All PassPort protocol radios receive direct frequency assignment
from the network. This eliminates the requirement to program every
channel in the network into the radio. As channels and sites are
added to the network, there is no need to re-program radios as is
required on other trunking protocols.
The PassPort protocol also allows for advanced technologies such as
GPS based vehicle locations or mobile data units.
If you are using the Kenwood TK-880 or a
TK-8180
you can use the
KDS-100 FleetSync data terminal.
The PassPort trunking protocol allows operators to build capable and
competitive wireless networks using proven, analog radio technology.
With PassPort, the future of trunking is here with readily
available, inexpensive subscriber units supplied by multiple
manufactures.