Swiss police to test 3 radio networks at Zurich Streetparade
At the festival Streetparade 2018, taking place in Zurich on 11 August, the city and cantonal police, Protection and Rescue Zurich, together with the federal government, will test three different radio networks: BLUnet, which runs on the Sunrise network, Swisscom Public Safety Data and a proprietary LTE network built by Armasuisse, reported inside-IT.ch. There is no country-wide communications system in place for the emergency services in Switzerland. Commercial networks of the mobile operators Swisscom, Sunrise and Salt can be used, but on condition that the communication of emergency units is prioritised and that the power supply of the whole infrastructure is secured. Emergency organisations need to be able to communicate even under a heavy traffic load, which can be assumed with nearly 1 million visitors to the Streetparade. BLUnet was developed by Aargau-based WZ-Systems, controlled by the power company Axpo. As a radio infrastructure, the network is used by Sunrise.
In addition, Armasuisse is building a small, proprietary LTE network on behalf of the Federal Office for Civil Protection (Babs). It is set up for twenty Sim cards and uses a 700 MHz test frequency band awarded by the regulator Bakom. It is used for communication of remote posts with headquarters. It is not known who is the technology provider, but none of the well-known manufacturers Ericsson, Nokia and Huawei are involved.
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