New functionality is designed to let agencies establish interoperable communications between each other directly, without calling ESChat
By Donny Jackson, Editor, Urgent Communications
Broadband push-to-talk (PTT) provider ESChat has announced that its “ESChat for Government” platform now includes a new “Self Discovery” option designed to let government agencies establish interoperable communications between each other in a streamlined manner, instead of being required to go through ESChat.
ESChat President and CEO Josh Lober outlined the importance of the Self Discovery feature to users of the ESChat for Government platform, noting how this new functionality lets agency subscribers to the service establish interoperable-communications links between each other without any intervention from ESChat.
Such interoperability using ESChat for Government—the hardened, FedRAMP authorized version of ESChat’s platform that supports broadband communications, collaboration and interoperability—could be realized in the past, but agencies were required to call ESChat’s 24/7 support desk to make it happen, Lober said.
“An agency gets to the site of some [emergency-response] activity, and they realize that the other agency—or agencies—that are there use ESChat, and they naturally think, ‘We should be on the same channel together,’” Lober said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications.
“In order to do that, what they have to do is call ESChat support, and they each have to send something documenting that they want their accounts tied together. Then, our support people can facilitate that for them.”
This process usually is fine for long-term interoperability agreements, it may be less than ideal during a fast-evolving emergency response, according to Lober.
“Mutual aid is typically planned out more—it’s not ad hoc, it’s generally set up and tested periodically,” Lober said. “But if you don’t know who you can interoperate with, you really don’t know what to do.”
The Self Discovery feature is designed to help address this shortcoming, by letting other ESChat for Government users know what agencies or talk groups—inside or outside of their agencies—they can request to join at the click of button, without having to call ESChat support, Lober said.
“I can sort [agencies that have opted into Self Discovery] by name or location or distance,” Lober said, assuming the perspective of an end user in the example. “Then, I can say, ‘He’s got a tactical team, and it looks like that team would pair with this team of mine.’ You would select those departments and request to have a pathway created [to support interoperable communications between the groups via ESChat].
“I select it and request it from you. You get a notice that there’s a request pending. You can approve it, deny it, or modify the request. If it’s approved, then those [agencies or departments] now effectively have tunnels between them, so that you guys can then create channels and add users from the other agency into your channels, or vice versa.”
Lober emphasized that an agency’s administrator will choose which of the agency’s personnel or talk groups are listed in the Self Discovery database, noting the flexibility of the process.
“What you can do is you can select departments that you effectively want to advertise for discovery,” Lober said. “Then, another agency … can search for new available agencies and departments [with which to communicate]. It’s going to show the ones you decided to advertise.
“It’s a means to allow people to work—on their own—to search for teams and to create the interoperability that they want. And if they ever decide, ‘This isn’t for us,’ they can opt back out. It will tear down all of the connections, remove all of the users from the talk paths, talk groups and channels.”
Subscribers do not have to pay any additional costs to utilize the Self Discovery functionality, according to Lober.
“No,” he said. “Interoperability, for us, is free.”
Last week, JVCKENWOOD announced its intention to purchase ESChat in a deal that is expected to close by the end of March 2026. Lober said the availability of the Self Discovery feature will not be impacted by the status of the JVCKENWOOD agreement.
Those interested in the Self Discovery feature can learn more about the offering by attending a Nov. 11 webinar with ESChat’s Lober that will hosted by IWCE’s Urgent Communications on Nov. 11 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern time.
