Notes for a global critical communications plan - Part 3 - Are global standards really so important?

Part 3 of this new blog series looks at the growth of global standards and their role in driving the development of mobile communications and society as a whole.

The relatively “niche” critical communications industry has started looking to the much larger commercial sector for future solutions, trying hard to influence the future direction of these standards as all communications become critical.

In the early days of mobile radio, local and national manufacturers built bespoke solutions for particular clients based on specific requirements that tended to differ by sector and activity. Production lines churned out relatively small numbers of devices with hefty, prohibitive price-tags that allowed only the privileged few to enter the mobile radio market. As the years passed by, a smaller number of manufacturers began exporting their products, as regional regulation of popular specific frequency bands for specific sectors and the use of common components and a smaller number of device designs created the conditions for modest economies of scale and increased use.

As a variety of different technologies were deployed, a situation was reached in the 1980s and early 1990s where police forces in a particular geographical area might be using a UHF system for better outdoor coverage and fire brigades could be on a VHF system in order to communicate better inside burning buildings; therefore being unable to communicate with each other in combined operations. Failures in communications during a series of high-profile incidents in the United Kingdom during the late 1980s led to the setting-up of the PSRCP project that led to Airwave – a single, nationwide (ETSI standard) TETRA network that was eventually adopted by all emergency services and is still in use today. Failures in communications during the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington D.C. led to similar calls in the United States for emergency services interoperability based on common standards such as TIA/APCO’s P25 standard.

The first truly global mobile communications standard – and still the most successful mobile technology of all time – was ETSI’s digital GSM (2G) standard, launched in the early 1990s, that greatly increased the capacity, coverage and usage of mobile telephony throughout the world. GSM roaming agreements and dual-band/tri-band phones created a truly global phenomenon allowing businesspeople and tourists to stay in touch from anywhere within range of a base station. Mobile operators such as Vodafone and Orange appeared to have licences to print money as they went on a massive spending spree during the dot.com boom and bust that led to dangerous levels of leverage as billions of pounds and euros were handed over to Governments in exchange for next-generation 3G licences promising uncertain revenues. Fortunately, Steve Jobs saved the day as Apple launched the iPhone leading to the smartphone boom that consolidated the mobile Internet and ushered in the digital age that we are now living in.

It appeared that good old PMR (Professional Mobile Radio) with perhaps 40 million users worldwide would not be able to keep up with the faster product and service cycles of the commercial sector boasting billions of connections. The competition in Europe between the ETSI digital PMR standard, TETRA and the proprietary Tetrapol technology for public safety contracts during the early 2000s had been won by TETRA. Public safety authorities in USA dabbled with alternative technologies in the early days but finally settled on the TIA/APCO Project 25 standard for agency interoperability, although P25 never really managed to penetrate smaller markets as equipment prices remained high and more advanced Phase 2 solutions never materialised.

Critical communications is a highly specialised discipline with highly-demanding performance criteria based on fast call set-up times and call success rates as close to 100% as possible, in contrast to commercial networks that need to generate profits for their shareholders by providing a best-effort service for customers with a series of disclaimers buried in contracts to avoid penalties. Critical communications network operators are expected to provide maximum coverage, capacity and service to cater for a wide array of planned and unexpected events including terrorist attacks, floods and earthquakes, as well as VIP and crowd safety during the Olympics, World Cups and royal weddings. Critical communications continues to work even when the most isolated community’s electricity is cut off during the middle of winter, simply because that is what critical communications is all about.

Having been built up, maintained and constantly upgraded over many years to survive in the harshest conditions, TETRA systems will continue to function for many, many years to come. In the United States, it has been made clear that P25 will continue for mission-critical voice for the foreseeable future even if/when broadband solutions also become available. DMR has become another successful narrowband digital PMR ETSI standard rapidly replacing analogue solutions. Current investment in these tried and tested standards remains strong and they fulfil user requirements in a complex, uncertain world so users will be reluctant to replace them until another technology can provide the same levels of service, security and resilience.

However, it is also clear that we must move beyond simple voice and short data applications for critical communications. In a world of digital Government, integrated transport systems, smart cities, the Internet of Things – and austerity politics -, there is constant pressure on critical communications operators to modify their business models to offer new capabilities that can only be delivered over new broadband networks. Law enforcement officers, fire services, emergency medical services, oil refineries & pipelines, heavy industry complexes, nuclear power plants and local Governments are looking to deploy intelligent sensors, cameras, drones, robots, body-worn video, Big data, predictive analytics and much, much more. It is also no longer just the underlying bearer network that must be standardised, but also services, applications, interfaces and operational procedures. Critical communications needs to find the right way of adopting new technologies without losing the critical features of older ones.

The commercial space has converged around 3GPP’s fourth generation mobile standard, LTE (Long Term Evolution) and now LTE-Advanced, which should eventually lead us towards a 5G era during the 2020s. Following the explosion of smartphone adoption, large amounts of spectrum have been made available for new broadband data services and more should come online following November’s WRC-15 conference. The rival WiMAX solution has been in decline for a number of years now making LTE the stand-out technology standard for all new wide-area mobile networks although the all-IP solution was not initially designed with voice communications in mind, creating a massive headache for the critical communications community hoping to adopt the standard.

A few years ago, the United States - represented by NIST and NPSTC – had already identified LTE for future public safety broadband. A well-funded FirstNet was set up in early 2012 with 2x10 MHz of spectrum in 700 MHz (LTE Band 14) to develop a nationwide network. The UK Home Office set up the ESMCP project to develop a new ESN (Emergency Services Network) based on LTE, with no additional spectrum and the expectation of service provision from a commercial network operator. The TETRA + Critical Communications Association also set up a Broadband Group (CCBG) in early 2012 to begin the ambitious task of working within 3GPP to develop a more mission-critical-friendly standard.

The Americans had already managed to get higher-power devices included in Release 11. The wider critical communications community started to participate more actively during Release 12 with a particular focus on Direct Mode (ProSe or D2D – device-to-device) and group call (GCSE in 3GPP parlance). A special group – SA6 - has been set up within 3GPP during 2015 dedicated exclusively to critical communications, where Mission-Critical Push-To-Talk (MCPTT) is being discussed for inclusion in Release 13, although it appears that a resilient fallback mode for isolated sites (with the acronym IOPS) has been delayed to a future release together with other mission-critical features. Yet another disaster – a ferry sinking in South Korea with massive loss of life – has led the Asia-Pacific nation to dedicate more resources to 3GPP SA6 work in recent months.

However, in spite of the best efforts of all those involved, the whole process of defining a public safety LTE standard will take time – a long time. The complexities of maintaining and upgrading a global mobile communications standard are immense. 3GPP does an amazing job herding several hundred organisations with conflicting objectives into common positions. There is external pressure from user groups such as public safety, but also strong supplier, operator and consumer lobbies, multiple industry groups such as automotive, gaming, extractive, global technology companies who all want to see their solution in the standard – together with massive IP (intellectual property) issues as we head towards continued convergence with fixed, WiFi, IoT/M2M in a future 5G era. Mass market solutions tend to focus on the lowest common denominators that can generate the fastest return for investors, so certain critical communications features that are important to our community but poor revenue generators for private enterprise could still find themselves left out of the standards process in the final analysis. This is a tough, brutal game where only the fittest survive.

So are standards absolutely essential for critical communications users when such standards processes may still not result in optimal solutions for the community? In these early stages, there are a number of players offering what we might call pre-standards solutions trying to influence the final outcome of complex negotiations at a regional and global level. For example, at recent critical communications events there has been a lot of talk about emerging broadband solutions such as Huawei’s eLTE ecosystem or ZTE’s 2+4 platform that either integrate with or combine narrowband and broadband services. Huawei, ZTE and other companies have already piloted and sold commercial systems that are performing an important role in saving time, money and lives for public safety and critical national infrastructure agencies around the globe. However, at the same time, these same organisations understand that they must continue to participate in the global standards process for a number of obvious reasons: interoperability, economies of scale, alternative suppliers, more robust, tried & tested solutions; future-proofing; greater affordability; larger ecosystems; a wider range of applications. Competition will also come from other unexpected sources testing out new technologies or solutions that keep standards bodies such as ETSI and 3GPP on their toes, testing out new ideas and opening up new lines of research that might be incorporated into standards process at a later stage. Such innovation and disruption is a necessary part of the evolution of societies and economies.

So what point have we actually reached in the standardisation of next-generation, mobile broadband critical communications? We have a much clearer definition of future user requirements; a number of networks are moving towards end-of-life and will need to be replaced; there will be a need for many years to come for operators to integrate narrowband, wideband and broadband applications in an increasingly seamless manner. The whole critical communications community will need to keep the pressure on equipment suppliers and network operators to incorporate all critical features into future releases. 3GPP SA6 will continue its valuable work. Network convergence and industry consolidation will proceed at a faster pace as the digital age moves closer and the older generation retires. We should prepare ourselves for a number of surprises driven by technological breakthroughs and events. There is no guarantee that we will get the solutions we want, which means we will need to continue lobbying, shouting, arguing, explaining and persuading anyone who we can get to listen to us. The world will be a poorer and more dangerous place if the critical communications is unable to find its voice within the major standardisation processes. In the long run, standards are important.

Of course, we are part of a dynamic, never-ending process where researchers and developers continue to push the limits of what’s possible. New players will join the party, while others quietly exit or search for new partners to reinvigorate their offerings. If we are patient enough and resolute enough, we will see the emergence during the mid- to late 2020s of a 5G era where all communications become critical. We have come a long way since those pioneer days of digital mobile radio in the 1980s and 1990s, but I have the feeling that there is still a long way to go.

To be continued…

The next post will take a closer look at how future critical communications requirements can and will be met by a combination of existing and future technologies.