Transforming Public Safety Communications System With LTE
Amrit Heer, Head of Business Development – EME, Parallel Wireless
The Middle East region was one of the first regions to launch LTE-based mobile broadband services way back in the early part of this decade. Beyond the commercial market, the technology comes with many unique features, which are perfect for addressing the mission-critical communication needs. It is not without reason that it has now started to transform the public safety communications system in the region.
The Middle East region has taken the lead in using the latest and the most innovative technology to enhance the quality of life. The stress on smart living is a more sustainable way of life and is a step in the right direction. A smart city is a safe city, and faster and more efficient response to a public safety incident is an integral part of that. A reliable, resilient and secure public safety communication system enables the authorities to adequately respond to the situation and save as many lives as possible.
How Does LTE Improve Public Safety Communications?
The LTE-based communication system allows speedier and reliable communication between the different public safety organizations, leading to an overall more efficient management of the crisis situation. Here are the key reasons why LTE has a significant edge over the legacy communications systems:
- A critical difference between the traditional Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) technology and LTE is that the former can transmit only voice while LTE is able to send large images, video and location information which allows the public safety agencies to take timely action.
With LTE the first responders can send live images of the location or can even live stream from the disaster site leading to a much better situational understanding and insights from the area. All this together can be a crucial enabler for the public safety agencies to take the required action.
- LTE is interoperable with all the existing standards making it easier for the public safety agencies to migrate from one standard to another slowly. This particular feature is especially beneficial because public Safety, by its very nature, involves coordination between multiple agencies, such as medical services, police, fire services and others. These agencies might be using different communications systems, but LTE allows various agencies to communicate with each other without a problem. So it can be said that LTE helps in bringing down complexity and cost of managing a public safety.
- There is a little doubt that LTE is emerging as a popular choice for public safety networks. A key reason for this is that 3GPP, a standardization body is developing features targeted especially for mission-critical services. Prioritization of services and preemptive network access means that the network will continue to function even during emergency situations. This means that depending on the requirement the network will continue to prioritize traffic from the mission-critical authorities to ensure coverage to the affected areas. This clearly gives it an edge over the existing standards.
The Bring-Your-Own-Coverage Approach
Many a times, the communications infrastructure is destroyed during a natural disaster. The LTE advantage can be further extended to provide coverage in case of network outage. The concept of Bring-Your-Own-Coverage (BYOC) and Network In Box (NIB) enables first responders to set up their own broadband communication network thus ensuring that the rescue work continues unaffected in spite of network outage.
It is a portable LTE public safety solution, which can be easily deployed in a backpack or a vehicle within minutes and allows people and things to continue communication even during a disaster. It also consumes much lesser power making it long lasting and sustainable. This can be quickly deployed even in remote areas without any coverage.
Sometimes disaster or an emergency might strike an area, which is not connected and lacks reliable and stable communication services, and this can adversely impact the rescue operations. Other times there are gaps in the network, which hamper the rescue operations. The plug-and-play and ease of deployment makes BYOC a perfect fit for such situations. This approach can ensure connectivity within minutes and that the rescue mission is not affected. The concept of BYOC was successfully tested in the US in January last year and it is also part of the US Government’s prestigious FirstNet project.
The use of LTE in the public safety communications system promises to transform the way first responders communicate. A robust, scalable and a responsive public safety network can play a key role in helping the agencies to save lives in the event of a disaster. It is time the public safety agencies start to leverage the power of LTE technology for an overall improved and much more efficient communications leading to the benefit of the citizens.
