Roll out of German TETRA Network on track
During PMRExpo 2011 it was mentioned by Rolf Krost - President of the Federal Agency for digital public safety radio - that the entire digital radio network will be available after 2014.
At the PMRExpo trade fair the President of the Federal Agency for digital public safety radio (BDBOS), Rolf Krost, made an initial conclusion about the roll out of the TETRA radio network for public safety in Germany. According to official data, from the 4400 base stations currently 2443 have been installed and 1402 have been integrated into the radio operation. According to Krost the entire digital radio network will be available after 2014.
Krost said that federal state and state governments lay right on schedule. Regarding the target date that was previously communicated by Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) at the start of digital radio project in 2007, mentioning that the network would be ready for communications in 2010 Krost did not comment. He referred instead to the former plan, which is aiming for 2012. This schedule of the experts was "politically intolerable" and have therefore been ignored.
The President BDBOS does not see it as a problem that no devices are currently certified for digital radio in accordance with Regulation (PDF file). Until the end of 2012 there will be a "general exception", moreover, the certification now runs quickly. From a total of 19 applications for interoperability certification four had been completed. Another 15 systems (6 radios, 9 control stations) should complete this test in 2012.
The day before PMRExpo 2011 started, the NRW Interior Minister Ralf Jäger (SPD) announced the start of the trial operation in the metropolitan areas of Dusseldorf, Cologne-Bonn and Aachen for early 2012. This is considered to be a tough test of the entire technique. Furthermore, the central data center for TETRA for connecting the metropolitan areas are only available in 2013.
The state of NRW has a total of 7000 police vehicles, 11,700 firefighters and 4,300 emergency ambulances equipped with digital radios, plus an unknown number of vehicles of civil protection. This makes NRW already compromising the overall system.
Source: www.heise.de
