Capacity Max is not for everyone, here's why

I can think of a few people reading this who are having a "OMG-what-is-Wayne-doing-now" moment. Eyes roll but seriously, Capacity Max is not for everyone and here's why I think so. Make no mistake, in terms of features; functionality and architecture, Capacity Max is the best trunked system I have seen for a long time and I am in no way trying to dissuade anyone.

In my own assesment, Capacity Max is best suited for customers who need things like:

- High traffic volumes
- Advanced call management
- User authentication
- Wide area (>15 sites) coverage.

Capacity Max is also best suited for customers who demand a trunked system that must comply with the ETSI DMR Tier 3 standard or must allow other vendors radios to operate on the system.

If none of the above are important or needed, then my reccomendation is to rather select Capacity Plus (Single Site or Multisite).

When I say high traffic volumes, I mean the number of users and the call rate exceed that which conventional and Capacity Plus can support. Since Capacity Max supports call queueing, we can use Erlang C in our loading calculations and theoretically can accomodate more users per traffic channel. (Erlang B must be used for Capacity Plus since a call will fail if the site/system is busy).

Capacity Max allows the system manager to assign priorities to users and talkgroups and can - permanently or temporarily - restrict access to one or more sites on a per user basis.
If the system is busy, emergency and other priority calls can also tear down an ongoing call to free up the neccesary traffic channels to process that call.
The system manager can also restrict certain call types on a group and user basis so that, for example, a user who does not need to make telephone calls is barred from doing so. There are many other call management features but these, for me, are the interesting ones.

In Capacity Plus it is possible to add Restricted Access to System to prevent unauthorised users from accessing the network. With RAS it is theoretically possible to counterfeit the RAS key and/or Radio ID by reading an existing radio codeplug.
Capacity Max however, allows user authentication based on the radio serial number and ID. It is therefore (near) impossible to gain access to the network by imitating another radio.

Capacity Max currently supports 15 sites - this will be increased in a future release. Unlike Multisite Capacity Plus (a.k.a Linked Capacity Plus), Capacity Max will only relay talkgroup calls to sites where a group member is registered (roamed).