TCCA welcomes new EC focus on digital communications as support for public safety spectrum

21 July 2014:

The TCCA welcomes the stated commitment of new European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to make much better use of the great opportunities offered by digital technologies.

In his New Start for Europe document, President Juncker states: “…. we will need to have the courage to break down national silos in telecoms regulation, in copyright and data protection legislation, in the management of radio waves and in the application of competition law. …  Enhancing the use of digital technologies and online services should become a horizontal policy, covering all sectors of the economy and of the public sector.”

Emergency services have an increasing demand for access to mobile broadband data services for their PPDR operations. The establishment of mission critical mobile broadband data services ideally requires a frequency band located below 1 GHz. An opportunity is opening at 700MHz. This band is today inter alia used by terrestrial broadcasting services, but is expected to be shared or ultimately fully re-allocated to mobile service at the World Radiocommunications Conference in November 2015 (WRC-15).

How important is Mission Critical LTE standardisation? Will it affect your organisation?

Will LTE really be able to offer Mission Critical Users the services that they need? When? And at what cost? What steps are being taken to ensure that there will be a global standard for Mission Critical Mobile Broadband?

Standardisation for Mission Critical LTE is VITAL. The topic will form a key part of the debate at Critical Communications World 2014. Watch the videos below to hear more from ETSI, the French MOI and TCCA on the importance of developing common standards. Users of all Critical Communications technologies must draw together to drive forward common goals for Mission Critical Broadband technologies.

TCCA Advises Timescales for Critical Communications Services over LTE

Latest News From TCCA

3GPP to incorporate key public safety user requirements into standards evolution

London UK Monday 11 March 2013 – Despite the ongoing roll-out of consumer LTE networks, LTE-based data services for mission critical communications will not be available until 2018 at the earliest, and acceptable quality voice services over LTE for mission critical users are not expected until at least 2020. These timescales have been published by the Critical Communications Broadband Group (CCBG), a Working Group of the TETRA & Critical Communications Association (TCCA).

Implementation of critical mobile communications services over LTE demands standardisation both from 3GPP and ETSI. The TCCA CCBG is contributing to these standardisation processes to ensure global consensus for critical mobile communications standards that fully meet users’ requirements while allowing a migration and interoperability strategy for existing technologies in different regions.

Tony Gray, Chair of the CCBG, said: “As part of the TCCA, we have over 20 years’ experience in supporting the creation of mission critical communications standards, demonstrated by the global success of TETRA technology. As the world moves to LTE, it is essential that the communications industry operates in a coordinated and coherent way to bring to maturity standards relevant to Public Safety and other critical users. We are working to ensure that such requirements are incorporated into the LTE standards effectively.”

Phil Kidner, CEO of the TCCA, said: “Achieving industry synergy is crucial to ensure uninterrupted availability of mission critical communications services. LTE is currently designed for commercial use. There is no viable replacement on the horizon for the current technologies employed by critical communications users. The work of the CCBG will help to ensure that LTE standards develop to enable a broadband data-only bearer that will initially complement, but not replace, existing critical voice services.”

Delivering Public Safety Communications with LTE

Report from 3GPP

A new white paper from Iain Sharp, of Netovate, assesses the work needed to ensure that 3GPP LTE meets the needs of Public Safety professionals and the broader Critical Communications community:

 

Delivering Public Safety Communications with LTE

Today there are two separate technology families for providing wide-area wireless communications: commercial cellular networks and dedicated public safety systems.

To provide the best service to both communities there is now industry support for greater use of common technology. Work underway in Release 12 of 3GPP LTE standards will enhance LTE to meet public safety application requirements.

Commercial cellular networks have been driven by the needs of consumer and business users. The exceptional success of cellular has led to excellent economies of scale and constant rapid innovation. This environment has produced advanced standards such as LTE that provide multi-megabit per second data rates and multimedia capabilities as well as traditional voice and messaging services.