28 Feb 2020

In the market for…radio maintenance contracts

What kind of maintenance contract a customer chooses will largely depend on in-house resources and how critical the radio system is to its business operations. Simon Creasey looks at some of the options on offer.

Historically, radio maintenance contracts were a bit of an afterthought and considered a ‘nice to have’ rather than a ‘need to have’ by end-users buying a two-way system, according to Ola Gwozdz, head of innovation and business development at PMR Products.

“Ad hoc repairs or battery replacements, often purchased from the company offering the cheapest deal at the time, rather than the original supplier, were the norm,” says Gwozdz. But the DMR era marked a shift from simple preventative maintenance contracts to more elaborate servicelevel agreements offering firmware upgrades, unlocking new features and with that new possibilities for vendors and customers.

Today, aftercare is a major consideration for customers who need to carefully choose the level of ongoing support they need for system and hardware maintenance, in addition to repairs and software updates. So, what sort of maintenance options are available to end-users and how do they go about selecting an aftercare agreement package that meets their specific needs?