MCX Rollout Q&A: 8 Critical Insights from Michael Davison
Why the switch from LMR to Mission Critical Services is happening faster than most operators expected — and what it actually takes to get it right.
Every conversation Michael Davison has today starts differently than it did eighteen months ago. Back then, MCX was a “someday” conversation — something operators nodded along to as an interesting future direction. Now it’s often the first item on the agenda. As Mobile Tornado’s Pre-sales and Operations Director, Michael sits at the exact point where ambition meets reality: he’s the one in the room when an organisation decides MCX is worth pursuing, and the one still there months later when it has to actually work. We sat down with him to find out what’s really driving the shift — and what nobody tells you before you start.
You talk to organisations evaluating MCX every week. What’s actually changed in those conversations over the last year?
The tone has changed more than the topic. A year ago, people wanted to understand MCX conceptually — what 3GPP compliance meant, how MCPTT differed from what they already had with PoC. Now they’ve done that homework. They come in asking about migration paths, interoperability with existing TETRA, DMR or P25 devices, and how fast they can get from pilot to full deployment. The conversation has moved from “should we?” to “how quickly can we?” — and that’s a real shift in urgency.
Why now? LMR has served these organisations for decades. What’s driving the sudden push toward MCX?
Several changes in the industry are happening. Standards bodies and industry groups, TCCA among them, have pushed hard on standardisation through 3GPP. That has given operators and agencies confidence that MCX isn’t a niche experiment. It’s where the industry is heading. Meanwhile, the cost of running LMR infrastructure is getting harder to justify, especially as the hardware ages out. The bigger driver is what modern public safety users now need from their communications system day-to-day. LMR was built to do one thing very well: push-to-talk voice. It still does that reliably. But today an operational incident is as much about data and video as it is about voice, and MCX brings all three together on one mission-critical platform.
- Mission-critical video: MCVideo lets officers stream live footage from body-worn cameras, drones or vehicle cameras straight to the control room or to colleagues on scene. The footage gets the same priority and reliability as voice. A commander can see a public order situation, a pursuit or a firearms incident unfold in real time instead of rebuilding it from radio updates. One-to-one and group video calls also mean specialists can support officers remotely, such as a negotiator, a medic or a senior officer.
- Mission-critical data: MCData lets agencies send images, files and messages securely. An image of a missing child, a suspect description or a building floor plan reaches every officer in a talkgroup in seconds. Database checks, ANPR alerts and digital evidence capture all happen on the same device.
- Dispatch and control room integration: MCX dispatch consoles give controllers a single view of voice, video, data and location. They can see where every officer is, patch groups together dynamically, take in live video feeds and task resources with far more situational awareness than a voice-only console allows.
- Officer safety: Emergency calls pre-empt all other traffic. Live location tracking, lone worker features and automatic video streaming when an emergency button is pressed mean that when an officer is in trouble, the control room knows where they are and can see what’s happening.
- Interoperability: Because MCX is standards-based, police, fire, ambulance and partner agencies can share talkgroups and information during major incidents. Interworking with existing LMR networks means agencies can migrate at their own pace instead of switching over in one go.
Frankly, the people making these decisions today grew up on smartphones. They expect mission-critical reliability together with the interface, flexibility and apps they use everywhere else. With MCX they can finally have both, and it gives frontline officers the tools that modern policing demands.
What’s the biggest myth you have to correct in a first conversation?
The biggest misconception is that moving to MCX means ripping out everything you have and starting again. It doesn’t. Most of the organisations we work with are doing a phased transition that builds on what they already have instead of replacing it overnight. In practice, that usually looks like this:
- Start with what’s available now. Agencies can deploy an MCX or push-to-talk over cellular (PoC) application on existing commercial 4G and 5G networks, often with priority and pre-emption, well before dedicated mission-critical networks are fully in place. Officers get used to the devices, video and data features early, and the organisation learns what works operationally.
- Run LMR and MCX side by side. Interworking gateways connect MCX users to existing LMR talkgroups. An officer on a smartphone and a colleague on a TETRA or P25 radio can talk to each other seamlessly. LMR stays in place as a fallback while coverage and confidence build.
- Bring the control room along. Modern dispatch consoles can handle LMR and MCX traffic together. Controllers manage both from a single position instead of switching between systems, so the migration is invisible to the people coordinating incidents.
- Migrate user groups at their own pace. Specialist units that get the most from video and data, such as firearms, roads policing or public order, can move first. Other teams follow once the case is proven, and legacy infrastructure is retired only when it’s no longer needed.
The myth that it’s all-or-nothing stops a lot of good decisions before they start. A phased approach reduces operational risk, spreads the cost and gets new capability to frontline officers far sooner.
From an operations standpoint, what actually separates a smooth MCX rollout from a messy one?
Planning for the people, not just the network. The technology — GCF-certified, 3GPP-compliant MCX — is the easier part these days; the harder part is change management. Dispatchers and field teams have muscle memory built over years on their existing systems. The rollouts that go well are the ones where training and real-world testing start early, not the ones where it’s treated as a switch-flip on go-live day.
What does “mission critical” actually mean in practice — what’s really at stake if it’s not there?
It means the call goes through when someone’s life depends on it, full stop — not “usually,” not “with good signal.” That’s the entire design philosophy behind PTToC and MCPTT: sub-300-millisecond call setup, priority and pre-emption, guaranteed group communication even under network load. Most people don’t think about mission-critical infrastructure until the one moment it has to work, and by then it’s too late to find out it doesn’t.
What surprised you most this year, watching organisations move from PoC to MCX?
How much interoperability mattered to them in practice, not just on paper. Everyone assumed MCX adoption would be about raw capability — call quality, coverage, features. What we actually see is organisations caring intensely about whether MCX will talk to the LMR systems, their existing device fleet, and the dispatch consoles they already have. Nobody wants to solve one communication silo by creating another.
If you could tell every operator one thing before they start their MCX journey, what would it be?
Start with your actual user’s problem, not the technology. The organisations that get the most out of MCX are the ones who came to us with a specific issue — dispatchers losing visibility across teams, a merger creating two incompatible networks, an LMR system reaching end of life — rather than adopting MCX because it’s the industry trend. The technology solves real problems. It shouldn’t be the starting point.
What’s next — for MCX generally, and for what you’re seeing at Mobile Tornado?
I think the next twelve months are about training and educating our global partners on MCX to go to market quickly and for real opportunities. Now is the time where there are real MCX projects going live and being deployed nationwide. The technology has been proven, accepted and is actively being adopted by public safety agencies. Our underlying MCX SDK has been recognised by TCCA as Best MCX Product or Solution of the Year, which gives us a strong marker of where TornadoX stands today — but the organisations we talk to want to see it running in environments like theirs, at their scale, under their conditions. That’s the conversation we’re having now, and it’s a good one to be having.
