Project 25 Documents & Standards Reference

Revised Jan 18, 2012

Introduction

The Project 25 New Technology Standards Project (known as Project 25 (Project 25 was established by joint efforts of the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials International (APCO), the National Association of State Telecommunications Directors (NASTD), selected Federal Agencies and the National Communications System (NCS). It was established to address the need for common digital public safety radio communications standards for First Responders and Homeland Security/Emergency Response professionals.) or P25) is a multi-phase, multi-year project jointly conducted by the public safety communications community and industry to establish a suite of open standards (known as the P25 (Project 25) Standard) that enable the manufacture, procurement, and operation of interoperable digital wireless communications equipment and systems to satisfy the service, feature, and capability requirements of public safety practitioners and other users.

APCO (Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials – International)/NASTD (National Association of Technology Professionals Serving State Government)/FED (refers to the United States Federal Government) Project 25/34 is the formal process name for the Project 25 standards.

APCO is the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials – International Inc.
NASTD is the National Association of Technology Professionals Serving State Government.
The term FED refers to the participation of the United States Federal Government in the process.

The APCO Project 25/34 Steering Committee and its Co-chairs from APCO and NASTD provide APCO Project 25 management. The Project Director in cooperation with the various committee and task group Chairs provides day-to-day project management.

TIA (Telecommunications Industry Association) is an SDO (standards development organization) that produces standards for land mobile radio. The TR-8 (Mobile and Personal Private Radio Standards) Committee of TIA’s Standards and Technology Department conducts the formal standards development process. ANSI (American National Standards Institute) accredits TIA to develop voluntary industry standards for a wide variety of telecommunications products.

Project 25 is unique in that it is a user-driven process to develop a family of public safety communications standards based on requirements that state, local and Federal government users define. Users determine the functionality and critical interfaces that require standardization to ensure interoperability among manufacturers of Project 25 equipment. The P25 SoR (Project 25 Statement of requirements) captures the public safety community's feature, function, and interface requirements for interoperable P25 communications. The P25 Steering Committee maintains, submits, and approves the P25 SoR.