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“I think exactly those concerns are the ones we as an industry need to follow”, commented David Chater-Lea. “We need to avoid technological dead-ends.... We have to watch, somehow, this trade-off between a very fast-moving industry and the very conservative sort of industry that we are.” However, going off as a separate technology spur, he argued, was something that the critical communications industry simply could not afford to do. “The question I would almost throw back to the audience is – let’s say we end up to put our own voice services on something that’s a spur and carries that risk, would you rather we had a single LTE air interface that covers data and all the voice communications or would you, as different users in different industries, feel happier that we do something like LTE with the data but we keep the old narrowband stuff for voice?” Building a new future Summing up the meeting, Phil Godfrey, TCCA chairman, said: “We thought that we had achieved something of a milestone when we changed the name of the TETRA Association to the TCCA, and we launched the new organization back in November. But for me, it’s actually been the last two days that have been the real milestone. These last two days have been the demonstration of how the organization really has changed.” And he closed with an appeal. “We’ve been talking about the need to engage with 3GPP”, he said. “I recognize that somehow we have to do that. We have to be talking to them if we are going to make any changes to the standard in order to facilitate what it is that you guys want. So in order for us to be able to do these things, we need your contributions to the organization both in terms of your subscriptions and in terms of your expertise and resources. So please support us in that.” And in this, he was backed by Tero Pesonen, a board member of the TCCA, in a passionate call for support for the TCCA’s newly-formed Critical Communications Group (CCG). “Ask yourself, do you want to be part of building the new future?”, he said. “Do you want to be those who will be praised in the 100 years to come for saving lives and society? “If so, go in your organization, discuss [whether] you or one of your colleagues’ time and resource can be made available, participate and work in the CCG, influence your society, influence the regulators, influence your politicians, and work on the common needs. And we can then pass on to ETSI or to the PSCE or to the political lobby, and we can get this thing moving, instead of just having a nice chit-chat.” TETRA, Tetrapol: the end of an ancient feudA special moment at the workshop came when Bruno Chapuis, chairman of the Tetrapol User group, took to the platform to put an end to more than 15 years of rivalry between the TETRA and Tetrapol worlds. Tetrapol, a digital mobile radio technology developed initially for France’s police forces and since deployed in several other countries, is incompatible with the ETSI TETRA standard, despite the similarity of the names. But Tetrapol users, too, are seeking a way forward. “In our future views, we have some constraints and challenges”, said Colonel Chapuis. “We have to build a bigger ecosystem to lower prices. We have to end the TETRA–Tetrapol duality, especially as we have to go to world standards for our next generation of networks. And we have to ensure coexistence between current systems and the new data network as long as we need. We have to avoid a new national network rollout: we don’t have the money.” Network co-operation Accompanying the colonel was his colleague from France’s Interior Ministry, Emmanuelle Villebrun. “In the future we need a unique network for broadband/narrowband data transfer”, she said. “We really need video transmission for mission-critical data, that is important to say. Now, for this video transmission, we only have public networks... but in the longer term we hope we will have this bolt-on network do high-speed data transmission. “We think that operator networks will always be in advance in terms of technologies. That’s why we will want to use them to benefit from business case opportunities and technological opportunities. And it appears that we will have to use both networks: a dedicated network for mission-critical data and operator networks for non-mission-critical data. That is to say, we will have to build a network co-operation between both types of networks.” On frequencies, Col. Chapuis was in favour of some harmonization to support cross-border mobility. But he warned: “In France, the broadband need in the short-term can only be satisfied in the frequency of 400–470?MHz because 700?MHz is not possible according to the French political decision.... In the very long-term it could be possible just above 470?MHz.”
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