Chicomm Blog

When you’re shopping for radios for your business, campus or agency, there are plenty of acronyms, numbers and lingo to keep track of, and that includes two-way radio frequencies: UHF or VHF.

Deciding which frequency you need is one of the first steps you should take when you’re upgrading, replacing or supplementing an existing fleet of two-way radios or choosing a handheld two-way radio for your team to use for the first time.

Let’s take a closer look at how to decide which of the two-way radio frequencies you need.

Motorola Solutions periodically conducts surveys to gather insights and feedback as part of its effort to continuously improve wireless communications for users and teams. The 2016 Commercial Survey collected input from 1,200 business and industry participants, “the largest single group of whom currently use two-way radios,” according to the company.

Respondents identified six wireless communications priorities they said would improve team efficiency, productivity and safety: Performance, Ruggedness, Voice & Data, Instant Work Group Communications, Application Integration and Interoperability.

Let’s take a closer look at each of the top six priorities for team wireless communications.

Two-way radios are continuing to evolve in exciting ways as more industries and agencies discover their superiority over cell phones – yes, even smartphones – for both everyday use and emergencies. When it comes to durability, reliability and clarity, two-way radios are better than cell phones on all counts.

We’ve had our eye on a few trends for two-way radios over the last year, particularly expanded offerings in terms of size, use cases and even color. So here are some predictions for two-way radios to watch in 2017:

Your legacy workforce management system probably isn’t just one system – it’s a series of disparate solutions that don’t talk to each other, don’t offer real-time updates and, worse yet, actually make it more difficult for staff across your office, plant or warehouse to communicate.

If you’ve just been putting up with your workforce management system’s shortcomings or haven’t shopped around for a while, you may not realize how stuck in the past your plant or office operations have become or what new, economic options are available.

To help decide whether you could use an update, here are 5 signs of an outdated workforce management system.

The health care industry has some of the most complex communications needs imaginable: in addition to the safety, security and privacy of patients and staff, the industry has mountains of patient data to handle and technology trends to track. 

There is no shortage of innovation in health care when it comes to communications, and things are getting more high-tech all the time for patients, health care professionals and staff.

Here’s a look at 6 things the health care industry is doing to improve communications.

As the end of the year approaches, how you spend your technology budget can impact not only your current communications operations, it can affect how much money is allocated to you next year. If you don’t use all of that money wisely this year, you likely won’t get an increase – or even as much – next year.

To preserve your technology budget and your ability to serve your organization, you need to make investments that show you’ve improved communications and overall efficiency. Fortunately, there are some great solutions available that serve a variety of wireless communications needs. 

Here are three savvy ways to spend your end-of-year technology budget. 

As your boss keeps reminding you, it’s your job to make sure wireless communication at your company, campus or property is something that no one is talking about because all is well: You’re effectively using communications to enhance safety and security, you don’t need to improve wireless communications with a stronger network and dead zones are a dead issue.

But if your communications are still a topic of conversation, there are solutions available.

Here are four things your boss wishes you knew:

Two-way radios have come a long way since their first use in public safety decades ago, and with wireless communications technology evolving more rapidly all the time, it’s exciting to think about where radios will be even one year from now.

Interoperability and convergence continue to drive the biggest trends for two-way radios, and with more industry-specific functionality being offered all the time, you can imagine that even more kinds of users will embrace two-way radios over smartphones or other devices.

Peering into our crystal ball, here are some educated guesses about where two-way radios will be one year from now.

The research is clear: School safety is not just a security issue, it’s an academic one. Students learn better and have better academic achievement when they’re confident in school safety and feel safe on school property.

Here we’ll take a closer look at one survey on the issue and review some options for technology – and financial assistance –  that schools have for making their campuses more safe. 

During an emergency, seconds can feel like hours, especially when it comes to locating workers to make sure they’re safe or dispatching help when they need it. Eliminating any blind spots in your ability to track employees cuts both your response time and precious time spent looking for workers who don’t need assistance but can’t immediately be found during an accident or emergency.

The new Real-Time Location System (RTLS) Indoor & Outdoor Positioning System from Teldio for Motorola MOTOTRBO radios blends Bluetooth technology and GPS to give up-to-the-minute information on workers’ locations via a web browser that can be accessed on a computer or mobile phone.