TCCA News
IGOF kicks off at
BAPCO/CCE 2019
The founding meeting of the
International Governmental
Operators’ Forum (IGOF) took
place alongside BAPCO/CCE 2019.
Around 40 high-level representatives of 19
public safety network operators from 17
countries (including the US) attended the
event. The IGOF kick-off was organised by
Germany’s BDBOS and Finland’s Virve, with
organisational support from TCCA.
IGOF is an independent informal group,
which will serve as a global exchange and
information platform for public safety
network operators. It will strive to co-ordinate
requirements and policies of the international
governmental operators’ community and
lobby for its interests. IGOF will serve as
an advisory committee to TCCA, and other
interested organisations on broadband-related
issues in critical communications. Its members
will consist of governmental operators and
political entities supervising operators of
government networks.
During the meeting in Coventry, the
participants discussed the governance of
the new group and prioritised four areas
of interest for upcoming further activities.
“Security for broadband environments” was of
paramount importance for nearly all attendees
with a focus on hybrid networks and devices
and cyber threats. Attendees expect IGOF
to facilitate the exchange of information
and experience with their peers, critical
communication users, industry and other
interested parties. IGOF is also expected to
focus on future technologies such as artificial
intelligence and 5G network slicing. Support
and consultancy were asked for regarding
the legal and regulatory environment. This
implies potential legislation to establish
mission-critical networks as well as
advice on how to draw up adequate contracts
Dutch MVNO
PrioCom joins TCCA
PrioCom, the Dutch critical
communications mobile virtual network
operator (MVNO), has joined TCCA, the
global representative organisation for the
critical communications sector.
The Rotterdam-based company
provides an end-to-end push-to-talk
(PTT) service which provides priority
access to T-Mobile’s commercial
network in The Netherlands; this is
marketed in collaboration with PrioCom’s
business partners, and the latter ensure
the provision of customer-specific
services. PrioCom claims that T-Mobile
offers a reliable network, and PrioCom
monitors its performance as well as the
performance and development of the
PTT application.
MCOP project confirms
multi-vendor support
The Mission Critical Open Platform
(MCOP) project, which is working to
streamline the process of developing,
testing and bringing to market standardscompliant
mission-critical push-to-talk
(MCPTT) applications, has announced
successful integration with the Sonim
XP8 ultra-rugged smartphone, a Band
14/FirstNet-enabled device. The XP8
now supports MCOP APIs, and this was
demonstrated during the IWCE 2019
exhibition on 6 and 7 March.
Sonim joins MCOP project partner
Bittium in enabling easy integration of
multi-vendor MCPTT apps into missioncritical
devices by supporting open
MCOP APIs. Sonim is a member of the
MCOP Supporter Program, in which
organisations commit to the principle of
using standards and open interfaces.
MCOP ensures smooth deployment of
mission-critical applications over different
MCPTT SDKs, devices and chipsets.
with mobile network operators (MNOs).
TCCA’s CEO, Tony Gray, joined the
meeting for a question-and-answer session
and expressed his appreciation for the
initiative which will provide a common voice
for governmental operators and become a
source of information for their partners. He
promised that the group will continue to
receive administrative support from TCCA.
Barbara Held of BDBOS, who moderated
the meeting, stated she was somewhat
surprised that the group chose broadband
security as the main topic above issues such as
standardisation and spectrum, but understood
that this decision pointed at a deficit in
information in that area. Standardisation
organisations and pre-standardisation groups
such as TCCA’s Security & Fraud Prevention
Group (SFPG) cover the security issues
around broadband at a very detailed technical
level, but network operators need information
at the strategic level to take the right
decisions. IGOF can aid the latter, by creating
a vision for how the security of public safety
organisations will function in a broadband
world. Held added that the need to discuss
the legal and regulatory matters is a logical
one given that most operators will be working
in a hybrid scenario and in combination with
commercial MNOs.
It was decided during the meeting that
BDBOS will act as IGOF’s secretariat for
the first year. The group will meet again at
a FirstNet event, which is taking place on
28-29 August in Boulder, Colorado. Another
meeting will also take place in the spring of
2020, when IGOF’s first chair will be elected.
To help address its members’ initial concerns,
the IGOF secretariat will work to create
a quarterly newsletter and also arrange an
expert workshop on broadband security in the
autumn of 2019.
Correction: In our previous issue, the print
edition incorrectly stated that Hazlan Abdul
Hakim, GIRN programme director at Sapura
Group, holds the title of “Datuk” – he does not
hold that title and we apologise for the error.
April 2019 @CritCommsToday 9