4th International TETRA Awards - “A Great Success”

The International TETRA Awards, a collaboration between TETRA Today magazine and the TETRA + Critical Communications Association is the annual event that recognizes excellence in the field of TETRA radio communications.

The International TETRA Awards took place for the first time in 2012 and has now grown to an excellent en international recognized event by end users, industry communications specialists and manufacturers. 

At this years event, that was held at the Landmark Hotel in London, the most talented individuals, innovative solutions and outstanding companies were gathered together to celebrate excellence and the range of award categories offered opportunities for products, applications and solutions of merit across the full range of TETRA activity, in both mission critical and business critical organizations.

Similar as in previous years, a panel of communications experts and authorities from across the globe assessed each entry, seeking evidence of flair, initiative and enterprise beyond the ordinary.

The event was sponsored by: Airbus Defence and Space, Rohill and Huawei.

The 7 Winners of the 2015 TETRA Awards:

Best use of TETRA for Public safety - Motorola Solutions

Motorola Solutions was selected for the nationwide public safety network in Norway in the category Best use of TETRA for Public safety. Norway’s Nødnett netwrok is a TETRA-based voice and data communications network supporting emergency services in a variety of urban and rural environments. Today the network has more than 2,100 base stations, receives over 600,000 calls per month and serves 25,000 Public Safety end users. The network is the only TETRA TEDS network in the world today. 

In this category Airwave was highly commended for their work at the NATO 2014 Summit.

Best TETRA Innovation - Radlink Communications & Suomen Virveverkko Oy

Both Radlink Communications and Suomen Virveverkko Oy were the winners in the category: Best TETRA Innovation.

• Radlink Communications was recognized for developing a SCADA telemetry transmission by adapting SDS to fit-for-purpose TETRA radios. The judge’s commented that he BVR5000 Controller solution is an axcellent product that has been missing from the TETRA vendor community for opening up SCADA opportunities.
• Suomen Virveverkko Oy (operator of the Finnish VIRVE TETRA network) was very happy to hear that their five technology evolution steps was selected by the jury. The first step is to create a data mobile virtual network operator for the increased data requirements. The Second step is to own and control subscribers in the LTE core. Step three is to expand the LTE core to dedicated broadband radio access in a chosen location, provided that a critical grade data service exists. Step four is to connect the two networks together. The final step is dismantling the TETRA radio access once broadband service availability and reliability meets all requirements. By implementing this five step approach, one of the first operational TETRA networks in the world (VIRVE) is now able to continue to operate for at least another 10 years and maybe even longer. This clearly shows that TETRA is still to serve the Public Safety communications market for the future.

In this category the Motorola Solutions for RTVi over TEDS  was highly commended.

Green TETRA award - Motorola Solutions

Motorola Solutions won the Green TETRA award by utilising green power solutions to deploy TETRA in remote areas. According to the judges, this solutions was received as very novel and innovative. Good use of methane to hydrogen conversion and solar panels.

In this category the Airwave UK TETRA network was highly commended.

Best Use of TETRA for Transport - Powertrunk

PowerTrunk won the Best Use of TETRA for Transport award because of the work with New Jersey’s Super Bowl Transit TETRA Network expansion. In January 2014, the New Jersey Transit statewide TETRA network was expanded by PowerTrunk to directly support NJT’s bus and light rail operations, and the underlying communications networks, for one of the largest sporting events in the world – Super Bowl XLVIII. The judges commented that this was an excellent example of a TETRA project expansion to support a transport operator during a major event.

In this category Motorola Solutions was highly commended because of its solutions to Avinor Oslo Airport.

Best Use of TETRA in Utilities - Sepura

Sepura was awarded for the Improved optimisation of resources and energy demand management for CREOS in the category Best Use of TETRA in Utilities. Sepura is delivering a complete communication solution to CREOS, comprising a TETRA infrastructure covering 2,586 km², TETRA radio terminals for voice communications, and 2,850 Piciogros TETRA remote terminal unit (RTU) modems for SCADA control to be deployed in the MV substations. The judges said this was an excellent example of a utility application where TETRA’s data capability is demonstrated, being more significant than the voice component.  

Highly commended in this category was Suomen Virveverkko Oy with the HelenNet merger to VIRVE.

Outstanding Single Site TETRA Installation - Rohill

Dutch TETRA manufacturer Rohill was the winner in the category Outstanding Single Site TETRA Installation for its rapid deployable TETRA system that was used during the Nuclear Security Summit that was held in The Hague, The Netherlands. - For NSS 2014, the solution was selected to provide full equipment redundancy within one cabinet, but without antenna redundancy. The interoperability was limited to a centralised command and control, with a dispatcher solution to a network and control room.The judges said that this was a perfect application of TETRA flexibility at a critical international world event.

Best Integration of Future Broadband with TETRA - Huawei

Finally Huawei won in this category Best Integration of Future Broadband with TETRA an award with the Huawei eLTE Solution. The Chinese company created an LTE-based dedicated broadband trunking network for Nanjing Municipal Government by combining a TETRA-based voice trunking system with LTE, in order to meet a growing data demand from Nanjing’s public safety sector.

Highly commended in this category was, again, Motorola Solutions, this time with its WAVE Work Group Communications – Connecting TETRA with Broadband Networks.

If you wish to read more details about the winning solutions, please visit the website of the Internationa TETRA Awards here.