Technology · 5 min read

RoIP explained simply

Radio-over-IP lets your existing Motorola, Kenwood, Hytera or Icom fleet talk to smartphones and dispatchers. Here is how it actually works.

RoIP stands for Radio over IP. In plain terms, it is a small box that sits next to your existing radio base station or repeater, converts its audio and control signalling into IP packets, and connects that channel to the internet.

The path a transmission takes

A worker keys up on a legacy handheld exactly as they always have.
The signal reaches the repeater as normal.
The RoIP gateway, wired into the repeater, captures the audio.
The gateway streams it to the cloud platform as an IP call.
Everyone in the matching talkgroup hears it — smartphones, rugged Android radios and the dispatch console.
Replies travel the reverse path and come out of the legacy handheld's speaker.

Why this matters commercially

Most organisations that still run radio have real money sitting in that equipment. Telling them to throw it away is a bad opening move, and it is usually unnecessary.

A gateway lets a site keep every existing handset while adding unlimited smartphone users, remote supervisors and a dispatch console on top. Old and new operate as one talkgroup rather than two disconnected systems.

Analog and digital

Analog FM gateways bridge audio and PTT keying. DMR and other digital gateways can additionally carry radio IDs, so the console shows which unit is transmitting rather than an anonymous channel.

Practical requirements

A wired or cellular internet connection at the repeater site.
A physical audio and PTT interface into the base station.
A defined mapping between radio channels and cloud talkgroups.

Modernising a radio fleet?

We will map your existing sites, devices and repeaters to a staged Pushytap deployment — usually keeping the hardware you already own.