Cisco talking IP-radio nets

Cisco this week is expected to announce new technology and a business unit focused on integrating two-way radio, cellular, VoIP and other communications methods into an IP backbone.

The IP Interoperability and Collaboration System (IPICS) consists of existing Cisco products and new server software that Cisco says will let public safety organizations and companies IP-enable two-way radio voice traffic and integrate disparate radio infrastructures with other public safety or private organizations.

While initially focused on public safety and government users - patching together systems of separate police, fire and governmental organizations, for example - Cisco says the IPICS platform will appeal to a broad range of public and private enterprise customers because the system also is capable of integrating disparate data and video signals with an IP infrastructure.

"[IPICS] is not a communications system in itself; it's something that enables disparate communication systems out there to work together in an IP format," says Brad Curran, an industry analyst with Frost and Sullivan who tracks government and military communications technology industries. "After [Hurricane] Katrina, we saw what a mess communications were. You had a lot of outside agencies coming in and it was difficult for them to all communicate. Something like [IPICS] would have helped a lot."

IPICS was developed by the newly formed Safety, Security Systems Business Unit.

Cisco is billing this effort as another of its emerging technology areas, similar to the launch in June of its Application Oriented Networking (AON) business unit . At the time of that launch, Cisco CEO John Chambers said the company would announce a new emerging technology every quarter over its next fiscal year. (In Cisco-speak, emerging technologies are different from its six advanced technologies - enterprise VoIP, home networking, optical, security, storage networking and wireless LAN. Chambers has targeted each as an eventual billion-dollar revenue source).

IPICS software runs on a Linux-based server and provides operators with an application interface that lets them control all communications links on the network.

An IPICS server acts as a central switchboard for any type of communication that comes into a network. This can include two-way handheld and mobile radio devices, cell phones, push-to-talk mobile phones, traditional analog and digital phones, as well as wired or wireless VoIP devices.

Radio equipment would terminate on an IP LAN via Cisco's Land Mobile Radio (LMR) Gateway, a Cisco router module that converts analog radio signals into packetized IP voice, and is currently deployed in public safety organizations. Cell phone handsets tie into IPICS via Cisco public switched telephone network/IP gateway equipment, used to link Cisco VoIP gear to carrier phone networks.