Enterprise Wi-Fi support on MOTOTRBO

In EMEA, all higher tier MOTOTRBO radios with an -e suffix, have Wi-Fi. As of R02.10.08, Wi-Fi is enabled by default, requiring no software licence to enable it.

This allows the radio to operate on a Wi-Fi network and do the following:

- Receive OTAP data from Radio Management.

- Connect into WAVE PTT service using the built-in client. 

MOTOTRBO radios can connect to enterprise Wi-Fi networks because they support WPA/WPA2-Enterprise/802.1x certificate-based access.

A WPA-Enterprise network uses a certificate for authentication, unlike a WPA-PSK network, which uses a password or pre-shared key. It supports the Simple Certificate Enrollment Protocol (SCEP) for Certificate Management and covers enrollment; renewal and rollover. 

Unknown radios need to be added (once only) via an enrollment Access Point that has been configured with WPA/WPA2 Personal. This enrollment Access Point is only needed when new radios are being added and can be disabled (or turned off) once this task is complete.

M2020.01 adds Opportunistic Key Caching to MOTOTRBO. This feature allows a Wi-Fi enabled radio easily roam across multiple Access Points. My former colleagues at Cambium Networks have a good description of how Opportunistic Key Caching works.

OTAP over Wi-Fi

In order for OTAP to work as efficiently as possible, radios use a protocol known as DNS-SD to announce their presence to the Radio Management Device Programmer. For this to occur, the Device Programmer host PC and radios have to be on the same network (note that TCP port 5353 needs to be allowed through to the PC hosting Device Programmer).

When a radio connects to the WiFi network, it will periodically send out a DNS-SD message. These messages arrive at the Device Programmer PC and, if there is a scheduled OTAP job, this will start. DNS-SD uses multicast so one needs to be careful to allow these messages to pass and not to route them to other Device Programmer host PCs - if multiple Device Programmers are used on the same LAN/WAN.

A bit about WAVE

MOTOTRBO radios that support Wi-Fi, also have the ability to operate on WAVE PTX. This is a cloud-based PTT service that allows users on different devices and locations - not served by the (or any) radio system - to communicate with each other. WAVE PTX also offers the possibility for providing communications to users who would not traditionally choose two-way radio or cannot use LMR for whatever reason.

Non-radio users can either use the TLK100 which is a SL1600-like device that operates on Wi-Fi and 4G networks. Or, they can install the WAVE PTX app on their mobile phone or smart device. There is also a web-based dispatcher for desk-bound workers.

Wi-Fi enabled radios have a built-in WAVE PTX client application which allows them to communicate with other WAVE PTX users. When operating inside the LMR system coverage area, they can talk to other WAVE users via the WAVE Radio Gateway which interfaces into the radio network via IP. When outside radio coverage, radio users can switch to the WAVE PTX channel on their radio and continue communicating via Wi-Fi.