PUBLIC SAFETY. TETRA is the de-facto standard for public safety communications today and for a considerable time to come, says Tony Gray, Chair of the Critical Communications Broadband group. However, last year TETRA and LTE cemented a partnership and looking forwards TETRA and LTE will become increasingly close partners in serving the critical communications needs of the public safety market.

There are over 3-million TETRA terminals out there today and in 2012/13 more terminals were deployed than in any preceding year. Not the signs of a technology that is about to be replaced any time soon. The optimal solution looking forward for the next 10-15 years will be one that builds on the mission critical strengths of TETRA to deliver the benefits of Broadband data to Public Safety organizations.

TETRA and LTE working together – in the video Tony highlights that “delivering the critical communications standards on LTE is key”. Tony specifically comments on the group working capability of TETRA and explains that what will be needed on LTE is the ability to support “One to many, all informed networks and not one to one calls”. Direct mode is yet another challenge and Tony explains that “direct mode, device to device outside of the network coverage, still being able to make call and receive calls whilst in radio range of co workers is key to mission critical users, whereas if you have no bars on an LTE phone you have no service”.

To achieve these capabilities there will need to be partnership between the standards bodies and the end user organisations around the world to ensure Public Safety LTE has the capabilities needed to support mission critical communications.

Beyond the need to create such alignment between TETRA and LTE there is the immediate need for clarity on the spectrum Public Safety will have access to.

For more insight into the thinking of Tony Gray, Chair of the Critical Communications Group, please watch his video.

For more information on the Motorola Solutions approach to TETRA and LTE read the White Paper ‘Transform Public Safety Communications through Broadband Innovation’

David Parry is Director, Solutions Marketing EMEA. David is on LinkedIn at uk.linkedin.com/in/davidgparry

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