Open Mobile Alliance to address Public-Safety Requirements in 2014

OMA’s push-to-talk over cellular (PoC) enabler should serve as a baseline for further enhancement to meet public-safety user needs, the group said in its 2013 annual report. Public-safety requirements work is underway in Release 12 of Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) standards that will enhance LTE to meet public-safety application requirements.

During a 2013 meeting, OMA companies discussed how and which technical work would be needed to enhance the OMA PoC and location enablers to support public-safety applications. The over-the-top (OTT) community must be involved in the work and provide support, said Telecom Italia’s Francesco Vadalà, OMA Technical Plenary chair.

“Indeed the push-to-talk (PTT) communications will operate at the application layer over the most efficient radio transport layer technology — currently deemed to be LTE in 3GPP,” Vadalà said. “Close interactions between the application layer and transport layer will be essential to achieving the expected solution objectives as above.”

The public-safety requirements will be sourced by the regulator or similar organizations such as the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) and the U.K. Home Office. Cooperation with other key standards and public-safety groups will help ensure broad representation of the public-safety community, he said.

Specifically, a new work item, Push-to-Communicate for Public Safety, has been approved and assigned to the Communications Working Group. In addition, the OMA Location Working Group is actively discussing a potential work item to support public-safety specific location services.