Summary Bullets:
• Critical Digital Shift: The critical industry are evolving to take advantage of new digital solutions as traditional radio-based operations evolves to include AI, video, and automation.
• Wider Ecosystem: The adoption of digital solutions by critical industries will require mission-critical clouds and mission-critical broadband, opening critical comms to a wider ecosystem.
Critical industries in areas such as defense, emergency services, and transportation are seeing broader adoption of digital technologies. Previously more hesitant than traditional enterprise, the use of digital technologies like AI, video analytics, automated workflow software, IoT, and even drones, are making an impact for these industries. Long-time providers of critical radio systems like Motorola, Tait, and Thales are now evolving software and video solutions. Meanwhile, newer digitally focused providers like Orion Labs and Streamwide are targeting critical industries with solutions around digital platforms and automation, competing on ability to deliver creative integrations with partners to unlock new use cases. However, this shift toward digital will also require a shift in the underlying infrastructure to deliver critical services.
One example from the traditional stalwarts is Motorola Solutions. The company has provided radio systems to emergency services for nearly 100 years in the US and at least five decades in many international markets. The company, however, is shifting with a strategic focus on the growth of software and services. The company recently reported that quarterly software and services revenues surpassed $1 billion for the first time in Q3 2024. Growth has come as Motorola is focused on driving video analytics, workflow automation, and integrated command center platform solutions to critical industries globally. In Australia, the company recently leveraged its PSCore solutions, which provides integration between mobile applications, computer-aided dispatch, and records management systems to digitize the workflow for Main Roads Western Australia. The solution allows road inspectors to be automatically notified when vehicles that are high risk for heavy-vehicle violations are caught traversing 115 different cameras in the state, using license plate detection and centralized database to flag the vehicles for intercept. The system has reduced time to intercept by 60% and reduced unnecessary stops. While Motorola’s core is radio, the solution represents workflow automation, video analytics, and integration capabilities.
From the other side, a company focused on digital critical communications from the start is Streamwide. The company develops and publishes communications and workflow management applications centered around text, voice, and video communications, including push-to-talk and unified communications. Additionally, it provides customizable software widgets to help enterprise develop digital workflows and automate repetitive tasks. In addition to communications and field service management, the company offers integration with IoT platforms, third-party enterprise resource planning systems and provides a software development kit for further customization of their platform. The company focuses on integrating its core VoIP communications platform with richer services like multi-party video chats, multi-casting (one-to-many video), and drone and IoT integrations for richer context. The company has seen take up of its platforms by critical infrastructure and defense operators like Thales and the French Armed Forces. These companies deploy Streamwide software platform either in the cloud, in central offices, or in some cases on infrastructure in the field. In some cases, the company partners with traditional critical communications companies to provide radio and connectivity infrastructure, while they focus on the software functionality and optimization. This represents where the market is headed overall as well as where there is opportunity for both competition and partnership between the same sets of organizations.
As critical industries adopt technologies that rely on video, analytics, and cloud-delivered software solutions, there will also need to be increased scrutiny on the quality of broadband infrastructure and the privacy and security of the platforms supporting the collection of critical data. There is room for the ecosystem to grow further. Cloud platform providers are seeking to develop sovereign and secure facilities that can help critical industries, which typically operate on-premises due to security concerns, take advantage of the cost and flexibility benefits of the cloud. Telco operators can explore the potential of 5G to support more mission-critical broadband services, looking at areas like 5G network slicing or implementation of the new mission-critical protocols included in the latest 3GPP standards. Exploration of mobile edge compute as a way to deploy digital solutions could be another area of collaboration. This can help foster stronger acceptance of digital solutions by critical industries as well as open up partnership and new routes to market with both traditional and digitally focused critical comms providers.