TIA Blog
The art and beauty of standards and engineering are often highly underrated and even misunderstood!
For instance, if it weren't for the engineers who contributed to TIA's public safety standard Project 25, our local police and fire departments would be tremendously challenged in communicating with one another during emergencies! With digital radio communication, police in neighboring counties have the interoperable technology that enables them to collaborate.
Engineering meetings are not just about writing standards and having collegial discussions among competitors; what Standards Developing Organizations (SDOs) do truly makes a difference and in some cases saves lives!
Today, we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the only standard in the world driven by the user community. TIA's public safety standardization efforts were initiated during a meeting at the U.S, Department of Commerce in October 1989. Almost 100 like-minded technologists participated.
During today's commemorative event, the room was filled with people who were part of the group at its beginning, signers of the Memorandum of Understanding, industry leaders, government participants, users – presidents, CEOs and the engineers who did so much to make our standard a success. Were it not for these persistent pioneers, the standard that is now used in more than 80 countries 25 years later would not have seen the light of day.
Today, memories were shared, congratulations were extended, and emotions ran high as John Wright, president of the Association of Public Safety Communications Officers (APCO) said, "Thank you for everything you have done for public safety. The commitment on both the APCO and TIA sides, all the people that are here in the room, whether you know it or not, have saved lives. The Project 25 standard now allows us to communicate with each other in the field, has literally saved lives of fire fighters, police officers, first responders of all types and citizens of the community. You all are life savers."
Visit TIA's Mobile & Personal Private Radio Standards Committee at this link.
