Keeping up with the pace of change in technology is a fact of life for modern businesses. Like the clients they serve, FM providers face pressures to undergo their own 'digital migration', using the latest tech solutions to offer more efficient, value-added services.
5 December 2017 | Brentwood Communications
Wouldn't it be great if the transition from old to new could always be seamless, safe and carried out your own pace? Wouldn't it be simpler if you could just add the latest technology to what you already do, without having to learn everything from scratch again?
And from a financial point of view, wouldn't it be easier to embrace change if you could spread the costs of investment over time, upgrading piece by piece?
With two way radio at least, you can do all of those things.
Analogue handheld radios have been around for decades. In the FM sector, they have been a mainstay communication tool for the majority of that time. Mobile, reliable and sturdy, two way radios help teams coordinate maintenance, cleaning, security and all of the other work that goes into running large premises.
From office blocks to shopping malls, hospitals to schools and universities, FM operators rely on two way radio to get things done.
In recent years, digital models have emerged to replace the trusty old analogue versions. Offering better signal range and higher quality audio, digital technology has rewritten the rules on what two way radio can achieve. More channels, more features, more options mean that two way radio can be used by bigger teams across bigger sites.
No longer just a push-to-talk device, the modern digital two way radio can plug into broader communications and data systems and be put to a wide range different uses, such as safety monitoring, access control, work ticket allocation and location tracking.
Digital two way radio offers many advantages over analogue. But that pressure to change can weigh heavily on businesses. Upgrading a suite of a dozen or more handsets at once represents a major investment. Your old analogue radios may still provide the core function perfectly well. Can you even be sure you will get value from the extra features digital offers? What will your ROI be?
With two way radio, however, there is no need to make a leap into the unknown all at once. Models such as the Hytera PD405 give you the best of both worlds - an affordable, easy-to-use two way radio model that operates on both analogue and digital frequencies at once.
Analogue and digital two way radios use different transcoders to send and receive different types of signal on radio frequencies. Some model can operate on both, but you have to programme the transcoder each time you want to switch. The Hytera PD405, however, it can switch from one to another seamlessly, connecting to both analogue and digital radios in real time.
This is why the PD405 is known as a migration radio. If you already have a fleet of analogue handsets, you can buy a small number of PD405's to try the digital features out for size - they will still work with your older handsets. This also means you can stagger an upgrade, replacing analogue with digital one handset at a time to spread the costs.
To find out more about the differences between analogue and digital two way radio, and to get expert advice on the right path to digital migration for your business, get in touch with Brentwood Communications today.