As others have said, the headline is misleading, and so is the story. However, everyone seems to be missing the point that a 'corporation' doesn't actually do anything. It's the people who are in charge of the corporation that do the things that are liked, disliked or reviled. If we can get governments and the public to remember this, I think a lot of improvements could be made.

LUXURY!!! Where I used to work (another Very Large International Conglomerate), we had a 5 MB limit, yeah, 5 MB, and that was in 2009-2010. And I had to WALK up the stairs to the 3rd floor. And it was 30 below with the AC blasting over my desk...

I know what you mean. I did a gig with a North American electricity supplier, and spent a lot of time in their Ops Center. They had 2 big screens at the front of the room, and about 8 workareas (semi-cicular desks) with 3 monitors on each of them, all the desks facing these massive 2 projection screens. One screen had real-time traffic and weather camera feeds going (why? I don't know, guess they wanted to know how the commute home would go...) The other screen had statuses for some of the more critical servers. Which was also funny, since I was there when one of those servers went from "green" to "red", and 4 pagers/phones went off in the room at the same time, and the those whose phones rang immediately got on the phone and started to troubleshoot, with the big screens all but forgotten.

In short, it's all for show, not really, truly useful...

Yeah, it's genius for the electricity generating companies, they can get the car owner to pay for the fuel to generate the electricity to charge their car.

Quebec is suffering the same issues. Canada established the Canada Health Infoway (https://www.infoway-inforoute.ca/lang-en/about-infoway) in 2001, has spent more than a $1B (CDN) to date, and just earmarked another $500M in 2010. None of this includes the $600M+ that Quebec has spent (let alone what the other provinces have spent) on Electronic Health Record systems...

The Canada Health Infoway is simply a framework and each province is responsible for setting up its own EHR system to link into it (health care is a provincial jurisdiction in Canada) . Overall, it's been a huge moneypit for Canadian taxpayers in most provinces (http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2009/05/27/f-electronic-health-records.html).

All I can say is good luck to the UK in their quest for EHR...

SpeedyDX has is right, it is a complex issue. I would like to add that it shouldn't be this complicated. If we started to think of internet connectivity in terms of a utility model, like electricity, water or natural gas, that should be the way to do it; in other words, I want to pay for what I use, and I don't want to subsidize someone who uses more than I do, nor do I want to leech off of someone who uses less. I pay a one time fee to connect my house/apt to electricity, to gas, to water, and then I pay per kWh, m3 or whatever. I should be able to do the same for internet, let me pay x cents/Mb be done with all this crap.

Yes, this is an ideal, and yes, I don't think this will come to pass in my lifetime, but hey, one can wish.

"There are times when discussing a situation on the radio to a supervisor is not acceptable because of the questions relating to which charges should be filled or what city ordinances may relate to a certain situation."

And those are NOT appropriate for the radio why? That is what a unit-to-unit call is for: rather than the whole talk group hearing it, only the supervisor and the cop here it. AND you get it on the nice multi-track recorder, admissible in court, in case any issues arise.

"I know for fact that every department going doesn't use APCO-25..."

And those departments are upgrading as DHS money becomes available. Moreover, I'm pretty sure California is on APCO-25, since they are buying the equipment to test it, and are testing their radios on that equipment.

"You loose[sic] credibility with me when you make remarks that the police abuse people."
And you "loose" credibility when you assert they don't. I'm not saying ALL cops abuse people, but SOME do - this is a demonstrated and adjudicated fact - and many times they use the cell rather than the radio precisely due to that nice multi-track recorder on the comm center.

The cop has to carry his radio - that's a given. There is no reason for him to have a state paid-for cell phone. Even if he needs to make a phone call pursuant to his duty - again, he can make a PSTN interconnect call on the radio (and again, have the advantage that it is recorded in a nice court admissible format).

Sorry if I touched a nerve, but: it is exactly that mentality - "We are the Thin Blue Line, we must protect our own, no matter what" that is causing people to NOT trust the cops. Rather than saying "Use the radio. Be recorded. If you are doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear. If you ARE doing something wrong, IA will find you and destroy you, and we will all help, because enforcing the LAW is our JOB." you have folks like you saying "It's OK if we hide things, because, well, BECAUSE, citizen."

Considering that I DESIGN the equipment the law enforcement types use to check out the system, I suspect I know quite a bit more about APCO-25, the uses of it within various law enforcement contexts, and the infrastructure than you do, sir. I doubt you could tell an LDU1/LDU2 from a TERMLC or a PDU, or even know what those acronyms are. I seriously doubt you have ever worked with any LEO comms officers, where I was working with the Phoenix/Mesa project on the first deployment of APCO-25 there a decade ago. I've worked with the FBI, the Secret Service, and several state level LEOs.

Again: there is NOTHING a LEO needs to discuss officially that cannot go over the radio, and be more secure than going over the PSTN, let alone any cellular networks.

"Come to think of it there are a lot of state LEOs that carry cellphones so they can discuss matters not suitable for regular 2-way radio...."

And that is bullshit. Most states are now on APCO-25, which supports encryption up to AES-256 (it also supports encryption beyond that, if you get the appropriate crypto modules from No Such Agency). The only reason anybody would use a non-secure cellphone vs a secure radio is that the secure radio is recorded at the dispatch center, making it somewhat difficult to discuss how best to "accidentally" allow the suspect to fall on his face, repeatedly.

A site seems to be missing from the participants, but I just can't put my finger on it /.