This year the Critical Communications World event celebrates its 20th year. The event is still relatively young compared to how long we, as a company, have been involved in critical communications. That’s 50 years in Germany, where the event was held this year.  And 40 years? I was reminded of this when I watched a video interview that Julian Foster did at the event in Berlin.

Julian managed to catch up with industry expert Jeppe Jepsen and discuss his personal experience and perspective of how the industry has changed over the past 40 years of his service - and the similarities that TETRA / LTE coexistence has with changes of the past.

There are definitely some key points that Jeppe makes in the interview that I found particularly interesting:

Jeppe was asked what the ‘last comparable big change’ that happened in the industry. Jeppe identifies this as the move to single ‘one network per country’ TETRA networks from multiple analogue systems. He believes this type of technology shift takes a long time and 'it's not just the technology, it's the organisations that need to adapt to new possibilities’…

Jeppe believes that our end customers should already be using broadband offerings from cellular operators, not for ‘life and death situations’, but they should start using it today, to take advantages of new tools it can enable and to make their organisations more effective. Jeppe points out an excellent example from the conference – Harris County using their messaging during flooding. Jeppe believes end users should be testing and implementing using today’s ‘best effort networks’ as long as you have ‘TETRA service as the backup’ and ultimately ‘there is absolutely no reason not to start with it now’…

You can check out the complete interview below:

Clearly as Jeppe says - 'there are two worlds that need to come together and understand each other' to deliver what our end users need.

90 years? Well that’s how long we’ve been innovating in critical communications – ever since we were founded in Chicago in 1928.

Even though CCW is over you can still catch up with all things ‘Critical Communications World’ on our dedicated microsite: www.motorolasolutions.com/ccw

Ricardo Gonzalez is MSSSI VP EMEA Strategy and Marketing at Motorola Solutions

Connect with Ricardo on LinkedIn

Follow #ThinkPublicSafety, @MotsolsEMEA on Twitter

Wow, what a show. In case you couldn’t make it or didn’t see everything, here’s my top pick of Public Safety focused videos from this week’s show.

Welcome to CCW2018 - Critical Communications is the lifeline for many of our customers. Tunde Williams gives us a short brief on new product launches and enhancements at the show - including the new LEX L11 handheld LTE device.and TETRA enhancements:

LEX L11 Handheld LTE – Paul Wilson introduces the new LEX L11 handheld LTE device and highlights its unique design for Public Safety users:

The CTO Interview – Julian Foster interviews CTO Paul Steinberg about his CCW conference session on  'How technology will support tomorrow's first responders':

Ultra Portable LTE Infrastructure - Martin Whitcroft gives a quick and comprehensive overview of the features and functionality of the new LXN 500:

Dimetra X Core - Steen Petersen explains why Dimetra X Core meets the needs of TETRA for years to come:

Si500 Bodyworn Video Demo - Paul Wilson takes us though a hands-on demo of the Si500 body-worn video camera including how it can work with TETRA and ASTRO radios:

Hands-on Fingerprinting with Pronto Biometrics - Chief Inspector Ian Williams takes us through a detailed, hands-on demonstration of the Pronto Biometrics application and more:

Hands-On Cybersecurity Demo - Paul Hill takes us through a hands-on cybersecurity demonstration:

Disaster Relief Scenario - Tunde Williams explains how new techniques including real-time video augmentation can be used to help incident commanders:

Critical Communications World 2018 Highlights - As the show draws to a close Tunde Williams shares his highlights:

If you are receiving this blog post by email, the links to individual videos may be missing. You can access them in our YouTube Playlist instead – Critical Communications World 2018

I hope you enjoyed this selection.

You can also catch up with everything CCW on our dedicated microsite at www.motorolasolutions.com/ccw 

Paul Jeffs is Public Safety Editorial Lead for Europe, Middle-East and Africa at Motorola Solutions.

Paul is on LinkedIn

Follow @MotSolsEMEA on Twitter and look out for #ThinkPublicSafety