Catalyst Communications Technologies at APCO 2024

APCO 2024, Orlando FL, August 5, 2024

Market acceptance of Catalyst’s innovation in mission critical communications interoperability highlight the messages and progress Catalyst and our partners have made in 2024

LMR to Broadband Interoperability Deployments are accelerating as PTT over Broadband becomes more ubiquitous

While not an exhaustive list, leading carriers providing push-to-talk (PTT) over broadband services, including FirstNet®, Built with AT&T, and Southern Linc’s CriticalLinc™ services, and First Responder organizations deploying these services have embraced Catalyst’s technology for Dispatching and patching group and individual communications between users on disparate broadband and Land Mobile Radio Networks. Several example use cases for these new technologies include:

1. A city police department was facing an end-of-life VHF radio system with a $2 million replacement cost, forcing them to seek alternative technologies. At the same time, they needed to establish a new, primary dispatch center. All combined, they required a standards-based, fully redundant interoperable communications systems with built-in support for multiple broadband networks and future technologies.
2. A large statewide law enforcement agency was having challenges managing multiple, disparate LMR systems with coverage gaps and issues providing seamless communications as their officers traveled across counties. Additionally, dispatchers were unable to properly manage inter-agency interoperability.
3. A state Forestry Commission was managing an aging LMR infrastructure and looking for ways to reduce operational costs and improve productivity. Additionally, they were looking for a multi-system console solution with advanced capabilities including dynamic, channel specific patching.

Catalyst is accelerating the development and deployment of innovative new technologies and partnerships in support of First Responders and Mission Critical Communications. After celebrating its 25th year providing communications solutions to the critical communications industry in 2022, Catalyst has continued to deliver even more capabilities to the marketplace that enhance public safety communications to keep our communities safe.

A Broadband Interoperability Platform

At APCO, Catalyst will demonstrate progress that it has achieved developing a Broadband Interoperability Platform to connect different Push-to-Talk over Broadband services, both standards-compliant and proprietary, funded through a contract with the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology (DHS S&T) Directorate. DHS S&T understood that, with the proliferation of different push-to-talk over Broadband services, there is now a need for a solution to enable users on these different LTE-based systems to communicate with each other. Catalyst will demonstrate communications between a smartphone running FirstNet Push-to-Talk AND a smartphone running Mission Critical Push-to-Talk on Southern Linc’s CriticalLinc™ service. The flexibility of Catalyst’s interoperability solutions allows Dispatch and Land Mobile Radio to also be part of this solution. The equipment that Catalyst will be demonstrating is shown below.

The “any-to-any” capabilities of Catalyst’s architecture provides flexible solutions for communications interoperability that can be tailored to the unique requirements of each public safety organization.

The Interoperability Ecosystem – Celebrating Catalyst Partners providing LMR and Broadband Communications to the Mission Critical Communications Industry

“It takes a village ….” Solving the ongoing and emerging communications needs of First Responders cannot be accomplished with a single vendor solution. At APCO, Catalyst technology will include interfaces and communications with FirstNet® Built with AT&T, Southern Linc’s CriticalLinc™ Broadband push to talk network, L3Harris’s new XL200 multiband and multiprotocol radios, BK Technologies’ new BKR 9000 LMR radio, Kenwood’s multiprotocol LMR radios, Logging Recorder interfaces to Eventide and Exacom, mission critical push to talk software that includes technology from Softil, and a new rugged push to talk smartphone from Sonim, among other partner technologies.  Catalyst will demonstrate its Propulsion console dispatching to an L3Harris XL200 subscriber device as it moves from FirstNet PTT to Southern Linc’s Critical Linc (both LTE) to Project 25 on 800 MHz to conventional VHF (both LMR). And Catalyst will demonstrate how its IntelliLink can patch any combination of those systems together to include single mode subscriber devices.

Location Awareness from LTE Devices: InterLoc™ support for Smartphones with 3GPP Compliant Mission Critical Push to Talk Applications

At APCO 2024 Catalyst will demonstrate InterLoc™, Catalyst’s location services for mission critical radio networks, now acquiring the GPS location of individuals with MCPTT applications on Smartphones connected to these LTE networks. Maps display and differentiate between various LMR and LTE users with distinctive graphics. The InterLoc™ system from Catalyst is unique because it does not require expensive map licensing or cellular data charges for LMR or LTE devices, making the system very cost-effective compared to typical AVL solutions. InterLoc™ is seamlessly integrated with Catalyst’s Dispatch and Interoperability solutions, and Dispatchers can initiate text and voice communications to individual users directly from the map. Maps can display subscriber status (such as Emergency), and Dispatchers can center the map on any resource with the click of a mouse. Multiple maps, and multiple types of maps, can be simultaneously displayed, and a robust toolkit provides map customizations that help Dispatchers to better manage critical communications resources. 

Advanced Application Technology: Routing Unit ID Between LMR and LTE Networks 

Catalyst has developed a unique process for transmitting Unit ID between portable Land Mobile Radio subscriber units and Smartphones on LTE Networks with standards-compliant 3GPP Mission Critical Push-to-Talk applications. This capability, common among digital Land Mobile Radio Networks, is not available today between Land Mobile Radio networks and LTE networks with Mission Critical Push-to-Talk support. 

Visit Catalyst at APCO 2024 at Booth 1620 to see the Propulsion Broadband Dispatch solution and advanced dispatch and interoperability capabilities, including communications between disparate LTE Networks: FirstNet Built with AT&T and Southern Linc’s CriticalLinc™. We’ll also display our new, streamlined user interfaces for AT&T and Southern Linc, Interloc™ Location Services now with LTE Smartphone tracking, and IntelliLink™ LMR / LTE interoperability, ICE™, our Incident Commander Element / digital repeater solution, and other innovations from the leader in Dispatch, Interoperability and Incident Command for the critical communications marketplace.

FirstNet and the FirstNet logo are registered trademarks and service marks of the First Responder Network Authority. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.

Catalyst Communications Technologies, Inc. markets Radio Control over IP technology for the Critical Communications Industry and is a force for change in the effort to bring Internet-derived technologies into Critical Communications applications.   Catalyst focuses on products that leverage standard Windows®-based computers to reduce cost and increase the efficiency of network operators and end users.  Catalyst’s extensive product line significantly enhances modern and legacy dispatch communications systems by seamlessly bridging wireless and wireline communications networks for network-based interoperability.

Catalyst was the first company to deploy Radio over IP technology to public safety dispatch in 1999, and what seems commonplace today – using Internet Protocol networks to connect Dispatchers to radio infrastructure instead of copper leased lines – was a huge technology leap at the time. Today, Catalyst technologies represent the leading edge of innovation as new public safety networks over LTE promise even more tools and information for First Responders.  This press release uses the term “Interoperability” broadly.  More precisely, Interoperability is communications between two different systems of the same type (i.e. P25 LMR to analog conventional LMR). Interworking is communications between two different types of systems (i.e. a land mobile radio system is communicating with an LTE system).

Contact Catalyst at [email protected] or (434) 582-6146 for additional information.