The three routes
| Route | How it works | Licence | Honest limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Licence-free (PMR446) | Radio to radio on 16 shared public channels, 0.5 W | None | Coverage runs out in big or steel buildings; channels shared with everyone nearby |
| Licensed (Ofcom) | Radio to radio on your own frequencies at 4–5 W; repeater option | Simple UK Light, ~£75 / 5 yrs | One site (or one repeater's reach); handsets need programming |
| Network (PoC) | Push-to-talk over 4G/5G mobile networks; unlimited distance | None (uses mobile networks) | Monthly per-radio subscription; dead where mobile coverage is dead |
All three are real business tools — this site recommends specs, not brands, and no route is "best" outside the context of your operation. The two head-to-head comparisons live in their own guides: licensed vs licence-free (the upgrade decision) and conventional vs network radio (the geography decision).
The decision tree
Answer four questions in order, and stop at the first route that fits. A habit worth stealing from the trade: answer them for the business you'll be in two years from now, because the second radio system always costs more than the right first one.
1. Geography: more than one place?
If the radios must link multiple sites, vehicles on the road, or people across a town — any distance beyond one site and its yard — conventional radio is out of the running entirely. That's network (PoC) radio. If everything happens on one site, carry on.
2. Walls: what's between the talkers?
Open ground and stud walls are kind to radio; poured concrete, steel framing, racking and mezzanines are not, and 0.5 W of licence-free power gives up first. A big, steel-framed or multi-storey building points to licensed radio — with a repeater if one building still defeats 4–5 W handsets.
3. Stakes: what rides on a failed call?
If radio carries safety-critical traffic — lifting operations, medical response, lone workers, safeguarding — you need guaranteed clear channels, which shared public PMR446 can never promise. Safety-critical use points licensed even on a small site.
4. Team: how many, how hard?
Two to ten radios in light use on one open site is business-grade PMR446's home turf — no licence, no subscriptions, working today. Larger fleets, all-day shift use, or multiple teams needing separate channels tip the economics and the airtime towards licensed.
The short version: multiple places → network. One hard building or safety-critical → licensed. One small, open, low-stakes site → licence-free. Most UK businesses that get this wrong fail question 2 — they buy licence-free for a building that was always going to beat it, discover the box range figure was measured on open ground, and buy again within the year.
What each route costs over three years
Planning figures for a ten-radio fleet, UK, including the accessories people forget to budget (earpieces and multi-chargers are core kit, not extras):
| Route | Up front (10 radios) | Ongoing | 3-year total (typical) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Licence-free (business-grade) | £800–£1,500 with chargers & earpieces | None | £800–£1,500 |
| Licensed | £2,000–£4,000 handsets, accessories & programming; +£1,000–£2,500 if a repeater is needed | £75 / 5-yr licence | £2,100–£6,600 |
| Network (PoC) | £1,000–£2,500 handsets | ~£10–£20 per radio per month (SIM/airtime) | £4,600–£9,700 |
Read the shape, not the pennies: licence-free is cheap and stays cheap where it genuinely works; licensed is a mid-size capital purchase with almost no running cost — the £75 licence is noise; and network radio inverts the model, cheap to enter with a subscription that dominates by year three. That subscription isn't a con — it's buying you national coverage and no infrastructure — but it means PoC should be chosen for its geography, not its low sticker price. Hire is the fourth lever for any route: it beats buying for short projects and seasonal peaks, and loses somewhere between 12 and 18 months of continuous use.
The five specs that matter
1. Power
The main coverage lever: 0.5 W fixed on licence-free vs 4–5 W licensed. No accessory or antenna claim on a licence-free radio substitutes for it — if the building needs power, it needs a licence.
2. IP rating
Match sealing to the environment: IP54 handles indoor dust and splashes; IP66–IP67 is the floor for sites, yards and washdowns. Under-specifying IP is the slowest, most certain way to kill a fleet.
3. Battery
Judge against your real shift plus overtime, not the brochure's duty cycle. Then buy the charging discipline: drop-in multi-way chargers at fixed points, spares on charge, one named person racking radios at close.
4. Audio
The spec you feel every hour: speaker output and noise-cancelling mics for loud environments (digital/DMR holds voice in noise better than analogue), and the right earpiece or headset per role — an accessory choice that changes usefulness more than any handset upgrade.
5. Safety features
Emergency button, man-down (auto-alarm when horizontal), lone-worker (timed check-ins). Cheap at purchase, near-impossible to retrofit, and increasingly what a risk assessment expects for yards, night shifts and anyone working alone.
Mixing routes, and migrating
The routes don't interoperate directly — a PMR446 handset, a licensed handset and a PoC radio are three closed circles — so mix by team, not within one. The pattern that works: licensed radio for the site team who live inside one hard building, network radios for the drivers, engineers and managers who roam, and the control point (office, gatehouse) holding one of each. Where one combined net is genuinely essential, suppliers can bridge a licensed site system to network radios with a gateway, and some business handsets will hold both licensed and licence-free channels — useful as a migration bridge. Migration itself is usually one of two moves: licence-free → licensed when the building or the stakes outgrow PMR446 (keep the old sets as spares and for off-site jobs — the accessories often carry over within a brand's connector family), or licensed → network when the business becomes multi-site (often run in parallel for a season rather than switched overnight). Both are cheaper than the false start of buying the wrong route first — which is the whole argument for answering the geography question honestly on day one.
Your industry, in depth
The decision tree above is generic on purpose; each environment then has its own spec. We've written the four hardest ones up in full: schools (safeguarding-driven audio, split sites), construction (survival spec, high-rise repeaters, fleet-per-gang), events (channel plans per team, hire economics) and warehouses (UHF through racking, man-down, licence economics) — with the broader consumer use-cases in the best-by-use hub.
Quick answers
Which route does my business need?
Multiple sites, vehicles or towns → network (PoC). One large, steel-framed or safety-critical site → licensed. One small, open, low-stakes site → business-grade licence-free PMR446.
What does each cost over three years?
For ten radios, roughly: licence-free £800–£1,500 all-in; licensed £2,100–£6,600 including the £75 five-year licence (upper end with a repeater); network £4,600–£9,700, dominated by the monthly per-radio subscription.
Can we mix routes?
Yes — by team. Licensed on site, network for roamers, control holding one of each. The routes don't talk directly, though gateways can bridge them where one net is essential.
Which specs matter most?
Power (0.5 W vs 4–5 W), IP sealing, battery against your real shift, audio (noise-cancelling plus the right earpiece per role), and safety features — emergency button, man-down, lone-worker.