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As the public’s expectations of mobile communications grow, professional users too are finding a need for data-hungry applications. Phil Godfrey, chairman, offers a view from the TETRA Association on the efforts being made to develop standards for the future Advances in telecommunications technology and capability – both fixed and mobile – have delivered tremendously powerful and valuable benefits to users around the globe. In the field of PMR mission- and business-critical communications, the arrival of TETRA systems has transformed the standards of service and continues to elevate users’ expectations as networks are rolled out across the world. TETRA is a well-established technology in daily operation in more than 118 countries, across a range of sectors and markets where organizations have a common and critical need for robust, secure, immediate and failsafe communications capabilities. In addition, TETRA has an unmatched list of special functions for professional users. These factors, together with the unique ‘killer application’ provided by TETRA in its ability to handle mission-critical group calls, and its superior voice quality, mean there is no better communications choice for mission-critical users worldwide. However, the evolution of mobile communications in the consumer market has led to explosive growth in the use of smartphones and tablet PCs. With the capabilities and the increasing availability of mobile broadband, the mobile communications device, applications and services market is going from strength to strength. This data-driven broadband world beckons to the critical communications industry – but the user requirements are not the same. The TETRA Association (TA) has a duty to its user members to ensure that future mission-critical communications technologies are appropriate to their particular needs by developing an intelligent and practical migration strategy from narrowband and wideband data services to broadband data. Better data capabilities Initially, to fulfil the requirements for greater data capacity, the Multi Slot Packet Data service (MSPD) was developed to enhance the first release of TETRA. It was, however, recognized that TETRA’s data capabilities were insufficient. As a result, ETSI created a wideband data standard which is known as TETRA Enhanced Data Services (TEDS). TEDS is a TETRA High Speed Data (HSD) service using different RF channel bandwidths and data rates for flexible use of PMR frequency bands. TEDS is fully integrated with the original TETRA Release 1, thus allowing for ease of migration. It has been optimized for efficient use of PMR frequency bands and designed for all TETRA market segment applications. TEDS was standardized to provide much greater flexibility in data provision, and much higher data rates with a choice of channel widths. TEDS is a truly wideband data service, allowing channels up to 150?kHz wide to be utilized, and data rates in excess of 500?kbit/s. This standard increases data throughput tenfold, and its ability to serve mission-critical users is unlikely to be rivalled during this decade. Wideband enhancements Evolutions to the current TETRA and TEDS solutions are ongoing. These include enhancements to improve throughput and reliability of data to enable coverage and capacity improvements. Another potential development is the merging of voice and data services together on the TEDS wideband data channels. This would allow greater flexibility in planning TETRA systems, because voice channels could then be adaptive in the same way that data channels can be, to allow coverage and capacity to be tailored in each area according to requirements. Mixing voice and data together on the same carrier is also more efficient, as the voice and data capacity can be traded from one instant to the next according to demand. A hunger for data However, the speed of technology evolution means its development requires constant attention, and on behalf of our members the TA is already working on how to deliver greater data capability for mission-critical services. With the importance placed on mobile data communications by domestic users, it is surely logical that professional users will need similar access to data-hungry applications. Streaming video of major incidents to a central control room, restoring electricity supply following storm damage and maintaining safety on rail networks that are handling increased levels of traffic are all examples of the need for high throughput, high availability data communications by mission-critical user organizations. In particular, there is an identified need from the TETRA customer base – from those involved in public protection and disaster relief (PPDR) activities – for higher data bandwidths up to broadband data speeds. Users need to share more multimedia content including video for situational awareness of operational incidents. Accordingly, Working Group 4 of ETSI’s TC TETRA has been tasked with developing a broadband data standard to provide a high-speed variant of TETRA.
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