Successful implementation of C2000 Operational Monitoring Centre during NSS

If you can manage ether discipline, you will reduce the load on the network quickly. Communications via the C2000 TETRA network in The Netherlands ran the last few days as planned.

The C2000 TETRA network for the emergency services has proven its success. However, until now the communications network for the emergency services has never been deployed during a large scale event such as the Nuclear Security Summit, that took place in the city of The Hague this week.

Proper conduct and monitoring the safety of all participants during the the event requires a lot of police deployment. This also means that much is asked in terms of communication links, including communications via the C2000 TETRA network.

It was decided to monitor the operational use of the network during the NSS top in order to detect system overload a timely manner. The monitoring team was active from March 21, 24 hours daily.
In an everyday situation, the technical capabilities of the C2000 network are monitored by the Network Management Centre (NMC). For the duration of the NSS, operational monitoring was added via the Operational Monitoring Centre (OMC).

Where the NMC is focused on the technical condition of the network, such as, sites, switches, etc. the Operational Monitoring Centre (OMC) was focused on the correct use of C2000. One of the roles of the the OMC was to supervise a maximum number of subscribers on a site and to prevent other than authorised talk group use. So, various activities where implemented in order to guarantee efficient operational communications.

The result of the use of the OMC quickly proved to be a success. Although the network was intensively used, the team that was responsible for monitoring proper use of the network by the various public safety services achieved positive results quite quickly. For example, calls of 50/70 seconds, were reduced to 20/25 seconds.

Lessons learned: If you can manage ether discipline properly, you will be able to reduce network overload, resulting in reliable and efficient communications for the emergency services during large-scale deployments.