NIST, DHS Program Evaluates Labs for Emergency Communications Tests
To help ensure that first responders, public safety officers, and military personnel can always talk with each other no matter what communications equipment they are using--a characteristic known as interoperability--the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have teamed up to create the Project 25 Conformity Assessment Program (P25 CAP).
Coinciding with this partnerships is the publication of the 2009 edition of NIST Handbook 153, Laboratory Recognition Process for Project 25 Compliance Assessment. The guide details the procedures by which independent testing laboratories can be evaluated for their ability to determine how well public safety and emergency communications devices meet the performance standard for interoperability known as Project 25 (P25). The guide may be downloaded here.