Reach
Issue 7 2014
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7
call set-up times. What LTE will do
then of course is to offer the ability
to bring broadband data, as well as
voice to the emergency services.
LTE is a natural transition, and it
is a transition that we will expect to
make in the future, but the question
is when will LTE be ready for
mission critical voice? The current
deployments of LTE in Great Britain
have no voice applications on at
all, and the commercial network
operators are actually offloading
voice back to 2G and 3G networks.
It’s not simply a question of
technology choice, it’s actually a
question of when is the right time
to make the transition for users,
bearing in mind the mission critical
nature of our customers’ services and
what they do. Airwave today provides
a guaranteed level of service, always
there. Most importantly, it supports
the emergency button function, which
is the first responders’ ability to
summon assistance if there is a life-
threatening situation. In Great Britain,
every six minutes a police officer,
firefighter or paramedic presses
their emergency button because
they believe they are facing a life-
threatening situation to them or to a
member of the public.
This will form part of service
transition, which is a question of
timing. We believe that LTE will
develop and will develop quite
rapidly, and so there is a time when
one feels it is right to migrate to LTE.
Of course, to deliver critical
communications over LTE, spectrum
is required. Most countries in the
world are looking to secure spectrum
for a public safety LTE network, for
example the US has already made
spectrum available for the emergency
services. However, currently the UK
government’s position is that it is
not pushing for dedicated spectrum,
preferring to rely instead on the
existing spectrum owned by the
mobile network operators. Airwave
is pressing for spectrum to be
made available for the public safety
services, and we believe there is a
way of managing the public safety
spectrum that will protect the value to
the taxpayer. This is effectively doing
what is being proposed by Ofcom,
but the other way round.
To explain, the government sells
the spectrum to the mobile phone
operators who then allow the
emergency services to use it when
they need it. We are proposing: give
the spectrum to the emergency
services, who can lease it to the
mobile phone operators when they
don’t need it – that, we believe,
protects the exclusivity of the service
when first responders need it but will
raise revenue in quiet periods.
If you do it the other way round,
by the time first responders get
access it will be too late. Putting
the emergency services in control
is a much safer approach in terms
of protecting levels of service to
the British public. This way also
protects the commercial value of the
spectrum as the mobile operators
can use it when it’s not needed by
the emergency services.
The mission critical services
that Airwave provides to the core
emergency services continue to
evolve to match the capabilities of
the bearer technology. Our services
will always meet today’s standards
of reliability, coverage and security
for mission critical voice and will
also include a suite of mobile data
apps as well, some of which we’ve
already launched.
It’s an ever moving space – so no-
one can say today what the services
will look like in, say, 2020. However,
be assured that Airwave is developing
all the tools and all the technologies
to deliver efficient and effective
mission critical communications
services for today, for tomorrow and
well into the future.
unications
