Connect Plus being phased out!

[Jutod]

Motorola has decided to phase out Connect Plus trunking. Scheduled support period will be 24 months after dropping it. I was the original hardware designer of the XRC9000 Connect Plus trunking controller, and heard this unofficially today.

Sorry, don't know any further details than that..... and this may be old news to others..... but I just thought I would share it.

 

[Forts]

Perhaps they will switch to a more compliant Tier III solution? Bit of a burn to customers who just recently went to Connect Plus. In my area alone 3 large factories have recently switched (Shell and Suncor refineries as well as a Toyota assembly plant).

 

[Rola]

I heard that there is only 2 more planed software updates to the Connect Plus platform then that's it.. This is freaking a few people out as they are concerned that the current issues that have existed for years wont be resolved. I know the XRC hardware will support Capacity Max but thats not going to happen and even if it did there is now the problem of GEN 1 radios not being compatible with it.

 

[techman]

Stone the crows - Motorola must be betting the house on tier 3!

This will hurt some big network providers locally as well. The next question will be cost of change over, licensing etc for the local service providers who are growing and now may have a technology which could be put out to pasture and retired

 

[CQDX]

Would Capacity Max maybe be what Moto is replacing Connect Plus with?

 

[Cacciatore]

It has to be! They don't have the footing to come out with another proprietary standard with Tier 3 right there.

 

[phonebuff]

[RANT ON]

Wow,

I am very surprised by the reaction here. Remember M bought Trident, and immediately closed out the other LMR solution, Connect Plus's cousin Passport. Why now that the DMR-III is quote ready, would they not move this way. While version 1 of Cap Max may not be a full replacement, I would expect that by the time we get to version two or three it will at least do everything that Connect Plus does today, and maybe much more with much less headache and infrastructure.

Just getting access back to the Option Board, and many of the base features of the Firmware, will be worth the potential hassles in my opinion. An not needing an XRC & XRT at every site is another major plus. Yes, GEN 1 radios may be left behind, but that has not been determined yet to my knowledge.

Connect Plus, AKA Passport on Steroids, has out lived it's place in the family tree.

Oh, and I expect Linked Capacity Plus to grow as well.

[/RANT OFF]

 

[Jutod]

Motorola came to Trident back in about 2008 and told us they wanted a trunking solution for MotoTrbo, but they didn't want it to be anything like the DMR Tier III open protocol. That was their stance in the industry then. Many folks have come and gone in respect to who makes the decisions at /\/\ now. So they have realized they made a mistake by adopting a proprietary trunking solution for their DMR products, and lost revenue in other markets because of it.

Yes, Capacity Max will be the replacement, and it is indeed the DMR Tier III protocol. I have not heard that the XRC controllers will be adapted for Capacity Max, so I can't confirm that one.

I guess to a common user/observer, one could call "Connect Plus AKA PassPort on steroids".... however, being someone that is very familiar with both protocols, they are actually very different. Passport is a low speed signalling protocol, Connect Plus is a digital protocol. Different concepts and capabilities completely.

 

[phonebuff]

I have not heard that the XRC controllers will be adapted for Capacity Max, so I can't confirm that one.

The CPE exhibits, and the IWCE exhibits, basically the same cases, showcased the new HP Based System manager.

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[Jutod]

The XRC9000 controller that I designed the hardware platform for was basically just a celeron processor running at 1 ghz. So it might not be fast enough for the job, then again it might be. The XRC9000 was basically a MOXA box that we tweaked the specs a little and had it OEM'ed to us. I can't speak for the later XRC boxes, but i would assume they are of similar design from an OEM source.

In theory, you could wipe redhat off them, and load another linux OS build and run a C-bridge if you wanted too..... they're just rackmount industrial grade PCs. Go to the Moxa Technology website and you will see similar boxes.

But it probably would be a question of if they will run it or not, it will be Marketing decision to do it or not.

 

[Mars]

Are they worth $30,000?

 

[zap]

Are they worth $30,000?

That'll get you 10 remote site licensed repeaters from one of the Tier 3 vendors....just saying.