European Public Safety operators and FirstNet agree on “A joint approach to Critical Communications”

They agreed to put forward a set of objectives as a signal to the international Critical Communications community: to public as well as to commercial network operators, to industries and manufacturers who provide solutions responding to the requirements of Critical Communications, to all players who drive standardisation, to researchers who work on next generation technologies, and to all users that rely on Critical Communications for their work.

The joint approach contains the following important items:

• Our common goal is to support public safety forces and other professional users with all the necessary tools and functions for Critical Communications. We aim to provide them with the best possible communication services, which are crucial for the successful delivery and completion of their missions.
• It is a privilege for us to be the driving force in providing strategic guidance and orientation to this growing community, where tactical and technical requirements are rapidly changing. We explore, analyse and bring together the expectations and demands of our users in order to convert them into specifications for standardisation and technological developments.
• Globalization and constantly changing security threat scenarios are expanding the scope of Critical Communications. Over time, more and more businesses and services that depend on continuous uninterrupted operation and communication - e.g. for energy and water supply, transportation, smart cities, automotive, or remote health care - will need to be part of our security plans, in order to ensure a secure and functioning environment for our global society. Therefore, we welcome new organizations and institutions with additional forces and agencies to utilise our networks. We will cope together with these new challenges.
• We will continue our globally coordinated efforts to deliver state-of-the-art technologies and the best possible services for fulfilling the daily tasks of our users. We are ready to embrace international operators from other regions of the world and representatives from across the Critical Communication sector in our community.
• As operators of national networks, we invite Critical Communications industry, manufacturers and commercial providers to partner with us and support us in delivering advanced open standards- based solutions to our users in Critical Communications.
• We will continue to promote professional digital radio as a fundamental element in safeguarding public safety, security and critical infrastructures as we work towards the deployment of Mission Critical Broadband for our societies.

As a result of the conference, the CEOs of BDBOS and of other European operators present in Berlin as well as representatives of TCCA, ETSI and PSCE agreed on the declaration “A joint approach to Critical Communications”.

Picture: Courtesey of BDBOS