Belgian TETRA Operator Outlines Public-Safety Mobile Data Plan

“One European TETRA public-safety national network operator is moving forward with mobile data plans for its users through a commercial mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) service rather than waiting for spectrum and technology details to be hammered out through the European Union and various public-safety association working groups.

ASTRID, the Belgian nationwide TETRA operator, is analyzing offers to a public tender for a data MVNO model under which the three Belgian GSM network services would be used initially. The service would incorporate a subscriber identity module (SIM) card configured with public-safety features such as nationwide roaming and end-to-end encryption.

“In Europe no spectrum is free from regulators to deploy a dedicated data network for public safety,” said Christian Mouraux, ASTRID product management and market intelligence manager. “People are working on it, but we are not there yet.

“In the meantime, we don’t want our users to go to the public GSM operator. We want to offer them an MVNO service, put in place and managed by ASTRID, so they can get a higher service level from GSM operators.”

The tender has three parts. First, ASTRID is seeking a third-party roaming hub partner to ensure international and nationwide roaming, something not currently available in Belgium. Another part of the tender includes a dual SIM card, with a mobile termination (MT) that would be activated by the roaming partner and a second MT that is silent and could be activated by ASTRID once it launches its own dedicated network. The third piece of the tender is for the management platform including the servers, virtual private network (VPN) and control units for the public-safety service.

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Source: Sandra Wendelken, Editor RadioResources