Predicting technology trends is an enjoyable exercise. It is a timely moment for us to think ahead and examine “what is possible.”
Each year, Softil’s industry outlook looks at the level of technology we already have, at the technology we know is coming, and where we can take it. In short, we ask … how can we help develop existing technologies to arrive at a sum greater than its parts?
When we talk about trends and predictions, it feels so good to talk about revolutions … “groundbreaking technologies”, “new frontiers”, “unprecedented achievements” et al … and yet most of these technologies become revolutionary only in retrospect.
The way forward is evolution, the way of gradient, methodical improvements, the little steps that all of a sudden constitute a significant journey. Sometimes it seems that we are going round in circles, but given a little incline, the circles connect together to form the spiral. The evolution is best imagined as a spiral – a succession of circles connected in upward motion.
MCX technology in 2026 …
MCX technology is a perfect illustration of upward spirals. Broadband-based Mission Critical Communications technologies came into being about ten years ago, as an intersection of ubiquitous mobile broadband and the dire need for group communications existing in many human professions.
The technology, first introduced in 3GPP Release 12 and now known as Mission Critical Communications (MCX), enabled group communications users to start moving past trusted group communications tools, so-called land mobile radios (LMR), to the brand new world of revolutionary (in retrospect) new communication capabilities.
MCX technology has been progressing in its capabilities and mindshare ownership for the past ten years. One day, it will seem like it was a revolution, but even if we settle for calling it evolution instead, let’s take a look at how far this evolution might take us next year. In other words, let’s talk about MCX technology trends for 2026.
Before we dive into MCX predictions, let’s address two main pillars of any technology predictions – AI and 6G would be two such pillars. No matter what technology we are talking about, we can’t avoid talking about AI, as AI will become more impactful in all areas of human life, and especially the technology we are using.
Going hand in hand with AI are computational power and connectivity. Especially connectivity – continuous “barrier-free” connectivity, more data, faster data, bigger bandwidth seem to be a mantra in today’s world. This is where 6G is coming into play. 6G is in its infancy, but we know how things have a tendency to accelerate – and the 6G train is starting to move. We are singling out AI and 6G as they provide an overarching theme, and instead of trying to aggregate the predictions around AI and 6G, we will be mentioning them at the points of impact.
Like any modern technology, the MCX world is not monolithic, and it includes many elements. We will touch upon as many of the MCX technology elements, however, without trying to sort them in any order of importance.
MCX Devices
MCX devices are largely modeled after traditional professional LMR devices – ruggedized devices with a few buttons and knobs and functionality limited to voice only. MCX, powered by ubiquitous mobile broadband, allows bringing in smartphone-like devices, with lots of bells and whistles, and many things to control. There lies a danger – in most of the professions relying on group communications for their daily activities – public safety, first responders, utility and transportation workers – it is critical to be able to communicate effortlessly, and mostly keep your hands free while doing that. We can expect a number of advances in the following areas:
- UI/UX
If you think about the UI (User Interface) and especially the UX (User Experience) aspects of mission-critical communications, your ideal UI is “Zero-UI”. Imagine the AI-powered solution that can predict communication needs and select the proper group and request the floor and open the microphone automatically, based on situation information. Of course, we are moving too fast here, and in 2026, such a solution at the production level is hardly possible, but this is the direction in which we need to go. Hands in gloves are not meant to push little squares on a smartphone screen; we definitely need a better UI/UX. Realistically, Voice UI, VR/AR/MX UI, Gesture UI, and Haptics Ui are all within reach, powered by natural language interfaces, attention detection, and wearable (earbuds, AR glasses, haptic belts) devices.
- Form Factor
Form factor is an important characteristic of any device, especially when it comes to the mission-critical communications serving emergency workers and first responders. Today, the most familiar form factor of a first responder’s device is a radio “brick” with a large antenna. The required and also the easiest form factor of the MCX device is the same type of radio “brick”, and such devices are already available on the market. However, we can expect that form factor has to progress to enable the delivery of other types of applications, not just voice. There is, of course, dependency on the Ui/UX. For example, if AR glasses or Voice UI become the main UI for first responders, it doesn’t matter what the MCX device looks like – it can be a pager-sized device attached to a first responder’s belt, and still deliver the required communication capabilities. While we don’t expect that 2026 will bring new MCX device form factors to the market, we can still anticipate the advancements in this area.
- Functionality-driven form factors of MCX devices.
As MCX deployments become mainstream, we start to better understand the needs of technology users, especially when it comes to the form-factor and functionality the device is expected to deliver. Do all first responders need the MCX radio or an MCX smartphone? What if a wearable pager-like device could play the role of the major MCX communication hub, with voice and video enabled by simple attachments? Such a communication hub can also include a minimal MCX user functionality, for example, to receive messages and reply to them, but more importantly, it might be able to manage IoLST connectivity and applications. While we might not see new functionality-driven MCX devices coming to market in 2026, we can definitely expect further research for the most usable, functionality-driven device form factors.
MCX Networks and Service
An MCX network is what makes MCX a vital, usable service to first responders, public safety, and all other group communications users. MCX networks are evolving together with general mobile broadband technology, going from 4G LTE to 5G and, expectedly, to 6G over the next five-eight years. The evolution of MCX networks is going in multiple directions. For one, connectivity and availability is steadily increasing, assisted by mass proliferation and advancements in satellite communications, especially the LEO (Low Earth Orbit) and VLEO (Very Low Earth Orbit) satellites. At another end of the spectrum are increasing deployments of Private LTE and 5G networks, guaranteeing communications at least within a given region or an enterprise. Putting all of these systems together, especially with AI’s help, we can now look at Multi-domain Orchestration, ensuring that this system of systems will enable mission-critical communications to become truly uninterrupted. We can expect continuous improvements in the MCX network’s availability and reliability in 2026 and beyond.
MCX Service Delivery
Dedicated core in 4G LTE with guaranteed priority and preemption, dedicated networks, cloud-based delivery, shared RAN, shared infrastructure … all trends for 2026. Service providers will continue to experiment with MCX service delivery, looking at all options to advance a network. Each model comes with its cost, security, scalability, and coverage. As MCX deployments grow around the world, the knowledge base will keep increasing, enabling optimization for the benefit of users of mission-critical group communications solutions. Softil expects that 2026 will still be the year of learning, before attempting any radical advancements of MCX service delivery models.
FRMCS
The Future Railway Mobile Communication System had been foremost in the minds of MCX providers for many years. It is a critically needed technology, based on 5G networks and MCX technologies at its core, intended to replace the rapidly aging 2G (GSM-R) technology, and guarantee the safety and reliability of today’s high-speed train networks in Europe and other countries around the world. FRMCS is slowly moving towards commercial availability over the next five-seven years. Considering the required level of reliability required for high-speed train control, it is clear that this is the primary requirement FRMCS has to satisfy. To ensure that FRMCS technology is ready to enable the future of the high-speed transit, FRMCS technology is presently undergoing rigorous testing, some of it run under a program called MORANE 2. With this in mind, it is easy to predict that 2026 will still be the year of rigorous testing for FRMCS, leading up to the first stable deployable version of the FRMCS specification, often referred to as FRMCS 1st edition. This FRMCS 1st edition will go into production around the 2030 timeframe. We can expect that as the production version of FRMCS becomes closer, the level of innovation will accelerate, culminating in the appearance of new applications and railway communication solutions.
Mission Critical Video
The ability to deliver real-time video to first responders is one of the major differentiators and benefits of broadband-based public safety communications. Video has an indelible benefit for situational awareness, instantaneously offering much more details than voice description. Today, video cameras are already everywhere – drones, satellites, bodycams, street cameras, car cameras, smartphones – you name it. Delivering proper video to the first responder in a timely fashion is an unquestionable game-changer.
And yet with such a clear value proposition, there are associated challenges. Video requires a lot more bandwidth on the network compared with a voice or a data stream. Also, too much of a good thing might be actually too much – multiple video streams should be analyzed for relevance and value before they are delivered to first responders. And these are the areas where we can expect improvements over the next few years. Network issues should be improving with the increase of bandwidth as 5G standalone networks become prevalent. And AI improvements can greatly help with processing video streams and identifying the most appropriate fragments that should best help first responders with the task at hand.
Situational Awareness
Full understanding of a situation might make a life and death difference for first responders. There are lots of tools on the market today that can present a full situational view to first responders … identifying people, vehicles, the location of resources, for example. However, most of these tools are “silo-closed” and require everyone in the team to utilize the same tools to have a joint operational picture. Additionally, such situational awareness tools rarely offer the ability to communicate within the group using voice or video.
As MCX networks become more available, we can expect changes in situational awareness tools starting with integrated MCPTT and MCVideo as part of situational awareness applications, which in turn guarantees interoperability. And on par with all other MCX elements, AI will be increasingly impactful, and shall we say, priceless. For example, AI will also be able to use predictive analytics and inform a first responder about impending danger or an impactful change in the situation, such as a possible building collapse.
Drones and Robots
Drones are already everywhere, and robots are something everybody loves talking about. Drones are irreplaceable in their ability to improve the operating picture, deliver video and telemetry from places that are simply not available to humans or to specialized machinery. By the same token, drones can deliver life-saving payloads and enable communications in remote areas. Today, drones are often associated with first responders, simply based on the impact they have on public safety operations. We can only expect drones to become smarter and better in the near future, especially with the help of AI. For example, drones can transmit MCVideo directly to the MCX server, with video distributed to groups of first responders after “just-in-time” processing by AI with artifacts clearly marked. And as for the robots, they are definitely coming, but we shouldn’t expect robots to be a hot trend of 2026.
Device-to-Device communications
Crucial and challenging might be the best two descriptors when discussing device-to-device communications. Here we are talking about devices being able to discover each other and then communicate with each other, sending voice, text and video – all of it in the full absence of a network. Device-to-Device, also known as D2D and Direct Mode, is a critical element of mission-critical communications, widely used today in the LMR world, enabling a “safety net” for first responders. With direct mode, first responders are able to communicate with each other in times of crisis or when required by the task at hand.
When it comes to smartphones, commercially viable direct mode communication was out of reach for 4G devices due to a number of limitations. Luckily, in 5G, with the introduction of 5G-Sidelink in 3GPP Release 16, the capabilities of direct mode communications reached the point where practical and useful implementation became possible, thus greatly improving the prospects of broadband MCX becoming the only technology used by the group communications users. The issues still remain, the first being rigorous field testing. The second is even more challenging – as device-to-device communications use licensed spectrum, the spectrum has to be allocated and managed specifically for D2D deployment. We can expect significant improvements in the device-to-device communications space in 2026, with technology entering field testing and spectrum availability issues coming to a resolution.
Spectrum
In today’s digital world, money and gold are not the only currencies. Data might be the most important currency of all, but the communication spectrum might give data a run for its money.
Spectrum is a scarce resource, which is a foremost issue for MCX and non-MCX communications alike. Spectrum is divided into a limited number of bands (communication frequencies), and communication is simply waves continually flowing within those bands. While invisible to the open eye, there are only so many waves that the band can accommodate in a given geographic area while making sure all waves will go from one end to the end without collisions. Once over capacity, collisions start, and communication becomes interrupted.
Because spectrum is such a scarce resource, there is always the need to innovate, to do more with less. For 2026, we can expect continuous innovation in spectrum management. To name a few technologies to watch, we can talk about Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS), allowing 4G and 5G to operate within the same frequency band, Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSA), allowing networks to dynamically change frequencies based on resource availability, or Licensed Shared Access (LSA), which facilitates spectrum sharing between users. You can also imagine that AI is playing an ever-increasing role in optimizing all of the sharing mechanisms to increase efficiency, and this trend will accelerate in 2026 and beyond.
Security
Security of communications is paramount, and it applies to all types of communications, mission-critical and not. Of course, we want to make sure that MCX communications used by the emergency responders are bulletproof, but so are all other types of communications – you don’t want your financial interactions with a bank to be easily compromised, do you?
What is interesting about security is that it is impossible for security technologies not to have trends. The need to protect is always challenged with an even stronger desire to break, so you can make a safe bet that security is always trending in terms of technological innovations.
As we mentioned before, AI is one of the major pillars, no matter what technology we are talking about, but when it comes to security, its value might surpass most of the other areas. Think about AI’s ability to detect break-in patterns or new patterns, which can be a telltale sign of security issues. We should expect that in 2026, AI-powered threat detection, behavioral analysts, and situational adaptation will be some of the hottest areas of development, alongside quantum-strong cryptography and Zero-Trust Network Architectures (ZTNA).
Mission Critical IoT and Internet of Lifesaving Things (IoLST)
What a vast topic. It is easy to write a big article on the subject of IoT alone. Yet we are covering here the realm of MCX predictions.
IoT is all about data acquisition, analytics, and device control. Mission Critical IoT, sometimes referred to as MCX Telematics, falls squarely in that domain, only with applications to the MCX space. For example, an ability to automatically open gates of the fire station as the fire truck is getting closer, all using AI and communicating over a secure MCX network, is a perfect use case for the power of MCX Telematics. Generally speaking, MCX has enough security, flexibility, and capability to enable the full scope of telematics applications, from controlling power grids to managing traffic lights to managing automated plants. Next year, we can expect to see significant advancements in the development of MCX telematics solutions and applications, as well as increased usage of AI.
We already live in the world of ultimate connectivity. Everything is connected to everything, or at least it is entirely feasible that everything might be connected. Your car can be connected to your jacket, and your jacket can be connected to your toothbrush – assuming there is a need for you to have such a connection. Moving to the world of mission-critical communications, a police officer’s bulletproof vest can sense any hits and automatically report them back to dispatch and control, and the AI engine running on the connected vest can decide when it might be time to automatically request backup. This is not a picture from a futuristic movie – this is already possible today all within the realm of Mission Critical Internet of Lifesaving Things, using MCX technology as a basis for secure, reliable communications. As MCX deployments increase, we can expect more innovative solutions in the MC IoLST space, and we can be sure that the year 2026 will clearly demonstrate this trend.