Italy
The Italian job
The global critical
10
Philip Mason talks to two major players in the current roll-out of mission-critical
communications in Italy, and asks what a broadband-enabled future might look like there
www.criticalcomms.com April 2019
communications
environment is currently
in a state of massive
change as nation states
continue, or in some cases start, to
negotiate their ongoing moves from
narrowband to broadband technology.
Needless to say, the speed of this
process is tending to vary from
country to country, with the likes of
the UK – which initially scheduled
its roll-out as if it was in some kind of
peculiar LTE adoption race with the
rest of the world – at one end of the
scale, and countries such as Germany
at the other.
One country sitting very firmly in
the latter category is Italy, which, like
its aforementioned European not-quite
neighbour to the north, is only just
getting to the later stages of its own
country-wide TETRA roll-out. More
to the point, Italy is also the location
for a plethora of individual legacy and
local systems – analogue and digital
– deployed on a regional/organisationby
organisation basis. While this may
not make for a straightforward story,
it’s certainly a compelling one for those
with interest in the sector and the
progress of European critical comms.
Network of networks
Massimiliano Veltroni is homeland
security and critical infrastructures
in progress, and currently covers more
than 60 per cent of potential users.
There are also other regional networks
still in operation to serve police forces,
but these are going to be replaced as
the TETRA PIT programme enlarges
its coverage.
“Regarding the latter in particular,
the National Police has a legacy
nationwide synchronous network
operating at lower VHF (70MHz),
while Carabinieri possesses its own
legacy analogue network at UHF. The
Financial Police has a VHF national
synchronous radio network for its
helicopters and patrol boats, with
the Penitentiary Police – serving
prisons and inmate transfer – having
a nationwide synchronous VHF
network. This covers the main regional
roads and national highways, and
there is a plan to revamp it with a
DMR system.
“These systems were rolled out
during a process which began in the
1980s, again, in lower VHF, VHF and
Italy also has a plethora
of individual legacy and
local systems – analogue and
digital – deployed on a
regional/organisationby
organisation basis
business director for Leonardo, the
company responsible for rolling
out and maintaining the country’s
aforementioned nationwide emergency
services TETRA network.
Giving an overview of the current
situation for emergency services when
it comes to communications, he says:
“As in other Western countries, critical
comms has a big role in support of
public safety and emergency services
in Italy. The current TETRA network
shared by different first-responders is
a result of what’s known as the PIT
Programma Interpolizie TETRA,
which began in 2006.
“Participants in the programme
include all the national police forces in
Italy: Polizia di Stato, Carabinieri or
gendarmerie, and the Financial Police
and Penitentiary Police. Privacy and
independency are enabled through the
adoption of a TETRA VPN virtual
private network mechanism.”
The PIT project began well over a
decade ago, with the initial Ministry
of Internal Affairs contract issued
to Finmeccanica (executed using a
controlled company) which in time
rebranded as Leonardo.
In terms of served area, today the
PIT covers Piedmont and all the
Italian southern regions, along with
Sicily and Sardinia.
Speaking of the project as it exists
today, Veltroni continues: “PIT is still
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