TWC 2012 interview: Motorola Solutions’ Tom Quirke on why TETRA has plenty of life in it yet

The news that the TETRA standard has been adopted in a further 57 countries over the last five years is music to the ears of Tom Quirke, VP of worldwide product and solutions marketing at Motorola Enterprise Mobility Solutions.

‘It’s a testament to where TETRA is going,’ he says enthusiastically. ‘The fact that TETRA has now been adopted in over 100 countries shows it is now truly a global standard. Independent research by IMS shows some great growth rates for three key verticals: public safety and government; transportation and logistics - particularly metros and rail; and utilities with oil, gas and wind farms. They all see themselves as mission critical and must be able to operate whatever the conditions.’

Quirke points out that TETRA is a very rich standard now, which means it can be adopted by the wider community, be they public safety or commercial customers. While much of the growth is coming from the Asia Pacific region, Quirke says it is good to remind people that the cradle of TETRA was Europe and there are still new roll outs happening there - in particular Germany and Norway - and refreshes to come in mature markets.

LTE and broadband may be the words on everyone’s lips, but the day when LTE offers a single, combined voice and data network for public safety organisations is unlikely to happen much before 2025/26 in most estimations. TETRA, it seems will be around for some time yet and Motorola Solutions certainly displayed its confidence in the standard with its new launches at TETRA World Congress in Dubai.

These include the new MTP3000 series of radios, a rugged telephone-style control head for the MTM5400 radio, an enhanced version of its TRACES real-time coverage monitoring product and the next generation Dimetra IP Micro platform incorporating TEDS.

Please click here to read the full interview.

Source: Wireless