The Florida-based company said in a statement that “the new unit will develop and deliver a comprehensive suite of state-of-the-art subscription-based software solutions for first responders utilizing the public cellular network.”
The company added that it has applied for three patents involving push-to-talk-over-cellular and other mobile phone apps for first responders.
In an email interview with Government Technology, CEO John Suzuki, CEO of BK Technologies, explained the roots of this new business, which will compete in the increasingly crowded field of public safety technology.
“Since 2010, when the general deployment of LTE technology started, public safety agencies have been pushing public safety applications and devices into their vehicles,” he said. “In the field, real-time access to information has transformed how first responders perform their duties, making them more productive and safer.”
This new business reveals how BK Technologies views the evolving communications market for public safety. BK already makes two-way radios for fire crews, and in the public safety world, land mobile radios (LMRs) and smartphones continue to converge.
“Most of the industry centers around either LTE or LMR solutions (and) BK is taking the approach that both technologies are required for public safety,” Suzuki said. “BK’s new business is focused around how we leverage the two devices, smartphone and LMR together, to deliver a new set of services which will make the first responder safer or more productive as he operates outside the vehicle.”
More specifically, he explained that from a public safety point of view, smartphones offer voice- and data-centric services, with “some voice capability.” LMRs are voice-centric devices optimized for what he called mission-critical communications.
“BK’s patents (leverage) the smartphone data capabilities with the LMR radio voice capabilities to deliver a new set of services which will make the first responder safer and more productive,” he said.
Over time, he said, LMR gear has become costlier to buy, deploy and maintain, even as that technology remains vital for public safety agencies during life-and-death situations. That reality is part of why BK decided to launch this SaaS business unit.
“Agencies should be looking to how they can use the public cellular networks for some non-life-and-death applications,” he said. “This shifts the capital and maintenance burden to a user-base subscription model which can offer more capabilities over time.”
The launch of the business unit came as BK Technologies was coming off a fourth quarter in which the company reported a 22 percent revenue gain, to $12.8 million. For the full year 2021, revenue increased 3 percent to $45.4 million.
In the recent post-earning conference call with investors, Suzuki said that the fourth quarter of 2021 brought orders of its gear from such public agencies as the Wyoming State Forestry Division and the Helena, Mont., Fire Department. Indeed, as is the case with other gov tech companies, wildfires and other forms of fire management are proving to be lucrative sources of business.
BK Technologies, though, is also looking beyond that core function.
“One thing that has become very apparent to all of us, as we follow news, is that wildland fire activity has grown steadily in both frequency and duration in the years,” Suzuki said during the call, according to the transcript from Seeking Alpha. “Fire management and response is a core market of ours and that continues to grow. Moving forward, we believe we also have a tremendous opportunity to increase our market reach beyond fire, rescue and mitigation into the military, law enforcement and emergency medical response sectors.”
Editor's note: Quotes misattributed to the wrong source have been corrected to the right source.
