This report continues the Practel’s research in the Public Safety Communications (PSC). In particular, it updates the technical information on the development of the TETRA technology and provides results of the marketing analysis for TETRA potential in the major European countries.
Events in the U.S. and all around the world showed that existing public safety radio characteristics do not satisfy new requirements. Particularly, those events demonstrated that first responders had difficulties to communicate with each other in a case of crisis. Decentralized structure of the public safety agencies, their desire to control means of communications inside of one agency without detailed planning to support also communications with other agencies created a dangerous situation. This situation is characterized by:
Absence of coordination between government entities to equip first responders with compatible radios and to create homogeneous networks
Absence of adequate redundancy to support first responders communications
Delay in deploying advanced technologies
Absence of continuity of operation planning.
This situation required immediate actions, and governments all around the globe were pressured to allocate significant funds to create the infrastructure for first responders’ communications.
In the technological part, the report updates technical information on the phased TETRA technology development; it shows TETRA evolution towards the MESA “system of system” concept of the global PSC network.