One Million calls on Nødnett TETRA Network in February
Police are core uses Nødnett, along with the other emergency services in Norway, like health and fire services. Together they have experienced almost twice as much traffic volume over the last year.
In February 2015, there were over 1 million calls recorded on the Norwegian Nødnett TETRA network. Compared with the same period last year, the number of Nødnett calls per month nearly doubled, from over half a million to over 1 million calls.
"There is much more activity in the interaction with the other emergency services. It suggests that all agencies are more familiar with each other", says Ronny Samuelsen, from the Follo police.
"Before Nødnett, we had no contact with each other before we arrived at the scene. Now realize several benefits of being able to reach more partners early," says Samuelsen.
Police are core uses Nødnett, along with the other emergency services like health and fire. Together they have experienced almost twice as much traffic volume over the last year.
Customs in the starting blocks
Nødnett is getting more and more users beyond emergency services. Nødnett is now used by many users in Norway like the voluntary rescue services, emergency operators, the military, civil defense and power companies and other important organizations such as customs and transport. Call traffic among the new user groups has increased by over 200 percent in the past year.
The customs department was connected last summer included with the region of Oslo, Eastern Norway and South Norway. The rest of Customs will be able to communicate via Nødnett in line with the development in the rest of the country.
Customs has also been involved in the Norwegian-Swedish ISI pilot project. This project connects Nødnett with the Swedish sister TETRA network, named RAKEL. This collaboration is unique in the world.
"It does happen that an action starts in Norway and ends in Sweden. When we come across the Swedish border, we miss being able to communicate directly with the Swedish radio network. Now we need to use cell phones and that it's not secure from eavesdropping. I hope ISI project will be successfull so far that in the future we have joint Norwegian-Swedish talkgroups. It would be a huge advantage," says Bjørn Langrud (picture), who is a Customs inspector in Oslo and Akershus.