With the tetra world about to hit madrid for its annual world congress, mobile europe looks at the latest market and technical developments, and finds that much of the action is happening out east.
With many European counties now well used to operating and running national TETRA networks for public and emergency service use, it is noticeable that development is moving on both in terms of the technology and the business model.
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A great example is in Russian, where the Government, which made a commitment to prioritise TETRA in 2003, has just (Mau 2007) laid out a plan for the development of its professional radio network from 2008-2015.
In 2003, when the Governmental Electronic Communications Commission decided to prioritize the use of the TETRA standard in Russia and modify it in order to create a professional trunking radio network to defense and security organizations, the Commission decided to use the 412-417MHz /422-427MHz and 457,4-459MHz/467,4-469MHz radio frequencies for the purpose.
A number of projects were implemented under the TETRARUS programme to develop the TETRA network in Russia. Trunking radio networks based on the TETRA standard were created in Kaliningrad, Kurgan, Cheboksari, Samara, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, and Kazan. The technology was widely used to organize such events as the Big Eight Summit, St. Petersburg’s 300th anniversary, the Eurasion Economic Cooperation summit, and the 60th anniversary of WWII.
Despite this movement, many of the Today the main defence and law enforcement agencies have their own mobile radio systems, with all the inherent disadvantages in such an approach — such as different equipment, which is often not compatible with other frequencies in use. And, they do not solve the problem of interaction between different agencies. That is why the government has decided it is necessary to implement a single standard.
Leonid Reiman, The Minister of Information Technologies and Communications has approved the concept of a national network to be developed by 2015.
Local analysts welcomed the Government backing for the project, which creates a huge market for the TETRA community, but also warned that there was still a long way to go.
Sergei Savin, J’Son & Partners analyst says, “The TETRA standard has proved to be very successful in many countries and has been chosen to implement the mobile radio network in our country. The concept will be another step towards the development of mobile radio network in this country”.
“The concept will significantly speed up the development of the mobile radio network in Russia, but its development also depends on a number of other factors”, AC&M Consulting Analyst Anton Pogrebinsky believes.
Staying in Eastern Europe, there was more good news at the start of 2007 for the TETRA camp with the news that Lithuania’s Ministry of Interior had selected Motorola to deliver a nationwide Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) communications network based on its Dimetra IP system. Lithuania’s nationwide TETRA network will serve the border guard, customs, emergency services (police, fire and ambulance) and the state secret service.
The network will support data transmission, enabling public safety organizations to send data – such as fingerprints, passport information, license plates and pictures – to and from handheld TETRA devices and central computer systems.
Motorola, working together with JSC INTA, Motorola’s local distributor, is responsible for the design and implementation of the TETRA network. Roll-out of the new network has just begun, and Motorola plans to hand the network over to Lithuania’s Ministry of Interior at the end of 2007. The contract also includes 6,200 TETRA radio devices, with built-in global position system (GPS) to pinpoint the users’ location.
“With the need to manage secure cross-functional and cross-border communications, Lithuania will benefit greatly from its investment in one of the most up-to-date TETRA networks in the world,” says John Gherghetta, corporate vice president and general manager, EMEA Networks & Enterprise, Motorola.
Things have not been going so well in Bulgaria, however, where the telco regulator has revoked Tetra licences
The local telecom watchdog has rescinded both licences it has issued for the provision of wireless services under the Tetra standard to local companies ProWave and Kan over the non-payment of frequency resource fees.
The CRC said ProWave owes 525,000 levs for the period since it was granted the licence in 2004.The delicensing procedure against ProWave was first initiated in late 2006. The payment deadline was reset twice to give the company the opportunity to settle the outstanding obligations.
At the time it won the 15-year licence, ProWave said it planned to deploy the network by June 2006.It was reported earlier this year that ProWave was in talks to be acquired by Italian communication systems suppliers Selex Communications.
For its part, Kan owes the CRC 379,000 levs in licensing and frequency fee arrears. The company won the licence in late 2006 on a non-competitive basis as it was the only candidate.
Both operators are barred for a year from competing in Tetra licensing procedures.
Across the border in Hungary, there was better news for terminal supplier Sepura. In November 2005 the Hungarian government signed a 10 year agreement (from 2007 to 2017) for the use of TETRA services. The total capacity of the system allows for over 42,000 public safety users. In December 2006 the government signed frame contract for the phase two delivery of TETRA terminals, which may reach in total up to 28,000 terminals. Sepura will supply SRH3800 sGPS hand-held radios with integrated GPS receivers, The Hungarian government has also chosen Sepura’s SRG3500 Gateway. Sepura’s mobile gateway gives improved access to the TETRA network in areas of poor reception by forming a bridge between the trunked network and individual hand-held radios. Kenneth Hubner, Regional Sales Director for Sepura said: “This is the biggest single contract for TETRA terminals ever signed in Central Eastern Europe, and it also demonstrates and reinforces the importance of separating the procurement of the network from the terminals. By procuring separately, as it has long been the market norm, Hungarian public safety users have ensured a wider terminal offering to choose from, including not only hand-portables, but gateways and other specialist terminals”.
There was also a win in Russia for Sepura with the contract to supply terminals to the ambulance service operating in the metropolitan area of Cheboksary, in the Republic of Chuvashia, Russia. The authorities chose the Sepura SRM3500 and SRH3800 hand-held radios, as well as SRG3500 mobile gateway terminals installed in the service’s newly equipped ambulance fleet.
Back in Western Europe, two government decisions were made, with Norway and Monaco joining the TETRA community on a nationwide business. The Norwegian decision also marked a stage in the development of UK TETRA operator, Airwave, which secured a consultancy brief on the rollout of the new network. Airwave has sought for a while to widen its European brief and this is its first success in this market. O2 Airwave will be working with network intergator Siemens.
Motorola won the contract for the Monaco network, where it will deploy a Dimetra IP network, an initial 1500 TETRA terminals, growing to 2000, and command and control stations across the country.
Airwave also provided another first for the industry with the news that it would be using Motorola’s TETRA PDAs, the first such contract in the world.
Finally, there was news from Qinetiq, licensed technology from Thorcom to address bandwidth limitations on the existing TETRA network by using other networks without compromising security.
Because of the bandwidth of the TETRA network, even with high levels of compression, there are limitations on the volume of data traffic which can be transmitted. Some emergency services providers have implemented solutions using other networks but by doing so lose the benefit of security and availability. This could have particular impact at times of national crisis when demands on other networks will be high.
QinetiQ has developed multi-bearer routing technology which allows data from emergency services applications to be and selectively routed across different bearers. Based on patents developed for naval applications, the technology allows confidential data to be routed over the TETRA bearer, while simultaneously routing less sensitive high bandwidth data, such as still photographs, video or CCTV images, over other high capacity bearers. If one of these bearers is lost, the application routes over an alternative bearer, with no need for user intervention and no interruption to the service.
One major concern in linking bearers in this way is possible compromise of the secure TETRA bearer via the alternative or ‘untrusted’ bearers. QinetiQ has created a software engine which is designed in an inherently secure manner This will ensure that Thorcom incorporates the QinetiQ routing software in such a way that the security of the TETRA bearer will not be compromised, and will create the emergency service industry’s first accreditable multi-bearer routing product.