Promoting a new patent, deployments of Catalyst technology, and integration progress with AT&T/ FirstNet’s new Fusion Platform
APCO 2026 San Antonio Texas
August 3,2026
At APCO 2026, Catalyst continues its 25+ year mission to make mission critical communications easier and more accessible for public safety, utility, education and other first responders and communications professionals. These organizations have come to rely on Catalyst’s innovative and leading-edge technologies to enable and improve communications between dispatchers and end users that rely on traditional Land Mobile Radio (LMR) technology and new broadband Push-to-Talk (PTT) services on smartphones using FirstNet® Built with AT&T, Southern Linc’s CriticalLinc™ and other broadband network providers.
Catalyst awarded a patent to apply artificial intelligence to public safety audio communications to infer situational analysis to aid dispatchers and first responders
Catalyst announced today that its patent application for “COMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS USING SITUATIONAL INFERENCE” has been approved. The patent award continues Catalyst’s continued drive to introduce new technologies to support mission critical communications for the public safety marketplace.
The invention implements a method whereby a communication system monitors Push-to-Talk over Broadband (PTToB) services, and, communicating with a second (or more) PTToB service, infers a community operational situation (e.g., information useful to other first responders on different communications systems), based on data obtained during the monitoring. Based upon the information being monitored, the system analyzes and then alerts and notifies the partner community dispatch system of the necessary information.
The patent is useful because it can alert on-scene first responders to details of an event. The technology created by Catalyst represents one of the first practical applications of artificial intelligence to support the mission of public safety communications professionals. This new capability is another tool to help dispatchers and first responders on the scene of a situation interpret data based upon radio communications and provide relevant and insightful information to help understand and respond to the situation at help and assist in their primary mission – to save lives.
Market acceptance of Catalyst’s IntelliLink™ interworking solutions
Catalyst president Robin Grier will speak at the P25 Compliance Assessment Program Meeting sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology (DHS S&T) Directorate, and describe installations of Land Mobile Radio to Broadband PTT communicating through Catalyst’s IntelliLink™ Interworking solutions, products which were developed through contracts with DHS S&T. DHS S&T also funded a Broadband Interoperability (BIOP) solution that enables disparate broadband PTT systems to interoperate with each other. Between these applications, systems currently deployed and in use in the field include:
1) A city police department facing an end-of-life VHF radio system with a $2 million replacement cost, forcing them to seek alternative technologies. At the same time, they needed to establish a new primary dispatch center. All combined, they required a standards-based, fully redundant interoperable communications system with built-in support for multiple broadband networks and future technologies.
2) A large statewide law enforcement agency facing challenges managing multiple, disparate LMR systems with coverage gaps and issues providing seamless communications as their officers traveled across counties. Additionally, dispatchers were unable to properly manage inter-agency interoperability.
3) A state agency managing an aging LMR infrastructure and looking for ways to reduce operational costs and improve productivity. Additionally, they were looking for a multi-system console solution with advanced capabilities including dynamic, channel-specific patching. We believe that this system, with more than 20 dispatch consoles enabling communications between legacy land mobile radio users and users on our new Mission Critical Push-to-Talk (MCPTT) application on broadband networks, is the largest deployed nationwide standards-compliant LMR-Long Term Evolution (LTE) dispatch and interworking system.
Catalyst is accelerating the development and deployment of innovative new technologies and partnerships in support of First Responders and Mission Critical Communications.
More progress with Fusion – FirstNet’s new Mission Critical PTT service from AT&T
As AT&T has moved to the new platform replacing FirstNet PTT, the Samsung-powered Mission Critical Push-to-Talk (MCPTT) offering, to a platform provided by StreamWide; a 3GPP-standard Mission Critical Services (MCX) which the French government used to support law-enforcement initiatives surrounding the 2024 Summer Olympics as a precursor to deploying MCX technology for public-safety agencies throughout France. Catalyst correctly anticipated the move to StreamWide and has integrated our dispatch and interworking / interoperability solutions with the StreamWide platform; consequently, we are the vendor of choice for AT&T for both Dispatch to Broadband and LMR and Interworking between Broadband and LMR. We’ll demonstrate the user interface to Fusion and the ease which with dispatchers can communicate with Fusion users and patch them to any other available broadband or LMR resource.
Innovative technology – A Catalyst strength
Always moving forward, Catalyst continues to develop technology and solutions that improve communications for the mission critical communications industry. Building on past demonstrations of interoperability between LMR and broadband PTT systems, and between users on different broadband PTT services, at APCO Catalyst will demonstrate the passing of emergency and unit ID to first responder subscriber units on different networks, as well as the ability to show the location of both LMR and Broadband users on a single map from their GPS coordinates. We’ll also highlight how well IntelliLink and our Propulsion console complement the L3Harris XL series subscriber devices and our ability to dispatch to this radio whether it is in LMR or Broadband/LTE mode.
Stop by Catalyst’s Booth 2711 for a discussion of the importance of standards-compliant MCPTT and our solutions for interoperable communications between legacy LMR and both standards-compliant and proprietary broadband PTT networks.
