The slow-moving Project 25 communication standard may get a boost from the recent release of a Statement of Requirements by its parent organization, the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials International.

APCO issued the statement in April to facilitate the procurement and operation of interoperable multi-vendor land mobile radio digital communications equipment by public safety agencies implementing the Project 25 Standard.

Project 25 is a suite of digital radio communications standards that is supposed to enable North American emergency responders on the federal, state, and local levels to communicate with each other across a myriad of LMR wireless communications systems during emergencies.

The standard was first issued in 1996 and approved later by the Department of Homeland Security, but adoption to this point has been slow. During the 9/11 attacks, for instance, first responders in New York didn’t have interoperable wireless radio networks.

In the five years since the attacks, most U.S. cities still have not established interoperable systems for first responders, according to Dave Storey, president and CEO of RELM Wireless.

One reason P25 has been slow to catch on is because the costs for compliant equipment were too high. In the last three years, however, lower-priced alternatives have entered the market,” he said. Consequently, the demand for P25 equipment has picked up, even though there is no blanket federal mandate that P25 equipment be deployed.

One federal agency did issue its own mandate, however. In 2003, the Department of the Interior directed all their agencies to purchase P25 equipment exclusively.