What is the standard (for critical data)?

Tero Pesonen believes that the standard for critical broadband critical communications radio access will be based on LTE for both critical voice and data services. But what will happen in the transitoir period?

ETSI TETRA standard brought global multivendor market into critical radio communications. It has produced a multitude of interoperable products to meet various use cases with ever increasing feature richness and quality – yet with sinking price tag. As the critical communications community moves from voice centric operations to information centric way of working the need for more data throughput and capacity is evident.

I believe the standard for critical broadband critical communications radio access will be based on LTE for both critical voice and data services. Yet, there is plenty of work to be done make that happen within 3GPP, ETSI, TCCA and in national regulations. Also the challenges related to frequencies financing and political decisions need to be overcome in a way or another.

So, there is cap of at least several years to well over a decade until the standardised – critical – LTE has replaced TETRA as the critical radio access.

What is the standard (for critical data) during the transition period? Is there one? Yes – it is IP.

As long as the solutions are on IP, they can be radio access agnostic. They are also ready for critical LTE as it becomes available. Any IP connection will do as long as it provides sufficient availability, security, capacity and throughput. Different radio access methods can be used in parallel. Even temporary dedicated – and proprietary – solutions can be introduced, if they can carry their cost before the transition to critical LTE. This enables moving ahead country by country or even regionally using any spectrum and other resources that might be available. The users get better service, the society gains benefits and most of all the way of working evolves contributing to the entire critical communications community. Let’s stay committed to standards, work for ensuring their availability and enable maximum benefits for the people on the field.

_{Picture: West Midlands Police}