The European telecommunications standards body ETSI has established a new committee for critical wireless communications networks. The TC CCS (Critical Communication Systems) is intended to further develop digital radio standards for police, fire services, emergency services, defense, transport, energy suppliers and other operators of critical infrastructure.
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This involves both new specifications for broadband networks and the further development of the outdated but robust TETRA standard. According to ETSI, the group’s kick-off meeting took place on May 12 and 13 in Sophia Antipolis, France, where ETSI is based.
TETRA remains, broadband is coming
The aim of the committee is not to immediately replace and shut down TETRA. The European standard is used worldwide and is known for robust voice communication. Another big advantage is the direct mode (DMO), which allows continued communication in the event of a power failure.
However, TETRA only offers a data rate of a few kilobits per second and is therefore little or not at all suitable for modern applications such as sending images, videos, maps and sensor data. However, in recent years, this data has proven to be an enormous help in assessing dangerous situations and operations. More and more security authorities and aid organizations are digitalizing their operations management and using quadrocopters and GPS trackers, for example, to keep an overview.
The TC CCS should therefore focus on creating standards and technical reports for narrow and broadband critical communication. This is also about the further development of TETRA, but above all about more modern mobile communications technologies such as 5G and LTE. Compared to TETRA, these offer more bandwidth (a few dozen to several hundred megabits per second) even with comparatively narrow channels and are therefore better suited to the higher demands of digitalization.
European Critical Communication System
The committee is supposed to prepare specifications for the planned European Critical Communications System, or EUCCS for short, which is to be established by 2030. It should not be understood as a single central EU official radio network. Rather, the aim is to make the communication systems of authorities and aid organizations in Europe interoperable – especially for cross-border operations. The EU Commission describes EUCCS as a system that connects the networks of European law enforcement authorities, civil protection and public safety organizations.
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TETRA also knows approaches for cross-network communication with the Inter-System Interface. In practice, however, true roaming remained rare because implementation, operation, security requirements and authorization models are complex. Especially since other standards such as Tetrapol and DMR are in use in addition to TETRA.
Ultimately, the EUCCS should not only deliver interoperable radio technology, but also standardization in terms of roles, priorities, security requirements and operating processes. The EUCCS is designed as a multi-layered framework for cooperation between emergency organizations.
Mission Critical Services over LTE and 5G
The technical basis for government radio via LTE and 5G should be the Mission Critical Services from the 3GPP standardization. These include MCPTT for mission-critical push-to-talk voice communications, MCData for data and MCVideo for video. These services are intended to transfer properties of classic government radio networks to LTE and 5G environments: group communication, prioritization, secure authentication and controlled use even under high network loads.
The ETSI obviously sees a need for harmonization. Even if national systems are based on 3GPP standards in the future, they do not automatically have to work together smoothly. The new TC CCS is intended to bundle requirements from governments, emergency organizations, network operators, regulators, industry and operators of critical infrastructure and derive technical specifications and reports from them.
State BOS 5G/LTE networks will not necessarily emerge from this: EUCCS currently does not specify a uniform operating model. National solutions can use dedicated, commercial or hybrid infrastructures; Interoperability, prioritization and secured mission-critical services are crucial. Belgium and Norway, for example, plan to use the base stations of commercial mobile operators, but to operate the core network themselves. So you act like a virtual network operator without base stations. However, where commercial cell phones do not provide coverage or have less capacity, you can still set up your own antenna locations.
Ready for use by 2030
The ETSI states that the aim of the work is to prepare the introduction of EUCCS by 2030. According to ETSI, more than 50 organizations from the critical communications environment came together at the inaugural meeting of the new committee.
Ari Toivonen from Finnish network operator Suomen Erillisverkot will chair the board. Deputies are Renaud Mellies from the French Ministry of the Interior for the broadband area and David Chater-Lea from the TETRA manufacturer Sepura for the narrowband area.
(amo)
