Narrowband  |  2023-09-01

BIPT Grants Entropia the Permission to Operate a TETRA Network in Belgium

Source: The Critical Communications Review | Gert Jan Wolf editor

Belgian regulator BIPT has decided to grant Entropia Investments B.V. the right to operate a Tetra network, with frequencies allocated for 10 years.

After 10 yesrs, the rights will be renewable for periods of 5 years, after a positive analysis by the regulator.

Beginning on 1 September 2023, Entropia has one year to launch its public services. Before each commissioning, Bipt will ascertain the technical characteristics of the base stations and the fixed, mobile, and portable stations.

Entropia stated in the request that the company wishes to use this TETRA communication network for the restart of the activities previously carried out on the basis of the user rights in the decision of 24 April 2013 concerning the granting to Entropia Digital NV of user rights for the operation of a public trunking network for radio communication based on the TETRA standard. These usage rights expired on March 31, 2023.

The company also wishes to use the TETRA communication network to connect to the national Entropia TETRA network in the Netherlands and further expand it with broadband push-to-talk, push-to-video and application APIs from third parties.

The network will initially be publicly offered on the market throughout Flanders and Brussels. Subsequently, the expansion to Wallonia is part of an intended subsequent phase.

Earlier this year, Cédric Van Loon from IT daily wrote that BIPT granted another company, Citymesh to use a private radio communication network according to the TETRA standard. 

Citymesh TETRA Network

In September last year, Citymesh submitted an application to BIPT for access. According to Datanews (another publication), the network specialist initially wants to provide three sites and three companies with radio communication. In the long term, just lie Entropia, Citymesh wants to build a commercial model on it.

BIPT has concluded a ten-year contract with Citymesh, which can subsequently be extended every five years. Citymesh indicated that it not only wants to roll out a TETRA network, but is also planning a transition to enable the network to push-to-talk via 4G and 5G.

Citymesh is on the rise. The company has been offering its network services to the business market for some time, but it sees it big. At the end of 2020, Cegeka took a majority share in Citymesh to turn it into a full-fledged national telecom player.