Public safety agencies cautious about adopting technology

Public safety agencies are cautious about adopting the latest technology, according to Paul Steinberg, chief technology officer of Motorola Solutions.

Police, fire and other emergency services are tentative about rolling out the latest devices because once they are deployed, agencies heavily rely on them in natural disasters and other emergency situations. If anything goes wrong, lives can be lost.

Steinberg believes that companies need to “build the right technology first time” and let public safety services be part of the device design process.

The LEX 700, a rugged device running on Windows, has been designed by Motorola with the emergency services in mind. It will work on private networks and commercial 2G, 3G and Wi-Fi. It also will use the Verizon LTE (long-term evolution) network on the 700 MHz spectrum in the US. The user interface looks like a smartphone and can be customised. The product is said to be released in the US later in the year.