goTenna Pro Management Portal
Enterprise-level frequency management and user provisioning system.
Probably the least known of the goTenna products, perhaps because it’s never sold separately, the goTenna Pro Management portal is a full featured enterprise-level user management system that is included with any purchase of goTenna Pro or goKits.
The portal concept was my attempt to solve a regulatory and usability problem. As the Pro was a fully software-defined radio, and operating on frequencies where many licensed users such as police, fire, etc operated, the FCC imposed stringent rules on who is allowed to tune radios licensed to operate on those bands as a way to try to minimize the chance of illegal interference.
Legacy radio systems rely on licensed technicians and specialty equipment that has to be operated on-site to tune - and although that was an FCC-approved methodology, that seemed like a very old school, slow, and expensive process for us to try to implement. It occurred to me that there was an opportunity to leverage the connected nature of our smartphone host devices paired with a server-based administrative control platform to reduce the tuning burden on us as a company, while also creating a much more user-friendly experience.
It was a risk because there wasn’t any precedent for a radio system operating the FCC’s Part 90 rules being controlled like this, but we felt it was worth the risk, as the logic behind our tuning controls was still solid. In the end we were grilled pretty extensively by the certifying authorities but to their credit, they saw that our new system of controls was reasonable and our certification passed without issue.
Today, the goTenna Pro Management Portal is provisioned for any new customers providing them with licensed admin accounts with tuning privileges, as well as child accounts with restricted ability to change frequencies. This allows administrative privileges to be assigned by our customers themselves, tune radios remotely, distribute apps for the goKits, and a host of other capabilities such as off-grid map packs, and more etc.
Although the most silent part of the Pro product suite, the Management Portal is a critical part of the Pro experience, a critical part of the Pro and goKit front-line product operations.