Vendor visit
30
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Our next stop is the internal staging area for the
company’s R&D work, where every new type of system
and software release is always tested prior to its deployment
in the eld. Oltmanns says much of the testing is
automated and uses a range of testing scenarios including
voice calls and data transmission. He adds that the
protocols used for IOP testing with other vendors are used
internally – “we do that on a regular basis with ourselves”.
We then move into the complex’s newest building,
which was opened as part of the company’s 35-year
anniversary celebrations in October 2015. Oltmanns
says it has a lot of solar panels on its roof and there is
also a system that in winter recirculates the warm air in
the staging areas to heat the rest of the building, and in
summer reverses thisapproach.
We pass a well-appointed canteen and move into the
TETRA R&D labs – the most recent product to be
developed here is the DIB-R5 outdoor base station, and
Oltmanns highlights the way in which “it’s a true one box
solution”, containing a base station and its controller, and
can be run on a laptop’s power adapter due to its very low
power consumption and can be easily set up using a webbased
interface.
We then see another testing environment; Oltmanns
says: “Everything with radio frequency has to be tried
out and tested. While you can make predictions and the
math, at the end of the day you need to put it in action
and then see how it works.”
We hope you have enjoyed this insight into a vendor’s
approach to TETRA infrastructure support and R&D. It
will be interesting to learn more about the company’s work
in Malaysia (see box) as part of our coverage of CCW in
Kuala Lumpur.
Hytera
Mobilfunk’s
training facilities
(left) and the radio
systems they
use (right) – aka
Hytera Academy
Europe
We move into the TETRA R&D labs
– the most recent product to be
developed here is the DIB-R5 outdoor base
station, and Oltmanns highlights
the way ‘it’s a true one box solution’
A short history
Hytera Mobilfunk’s story began in 1980, when Heinz
Bick founded a small engineering start-up that quickly
specialised in two-way radio systems. The company
Intelsig Mikroelektronik GmbH was founded in 1984,
and its name changed in 1987 to Neuwirth & Bick
as a result of the purchase of Neuwirth, a company
specialising in measuring instruments. It became partowned
by Rohde & Schwarz in 1988. In the same year,
the company started its development of its ACCESSNET
solution, which was based on the MPT1327 standard
and launched the following year. The company was
integrated into the Rohde & Schwarz group in 1992 and
renamed Rohde & Schwarz Professional Mobile Radio
GmbH. 1999 saw the company deploy the rst TETRA
system in Germany, for a combat training centre that
used its data capabilities (which were able to send 14
messages/second/user) to underpin a sophisticated
laser tag system.
In 2007, Georg Haubs replaced Heinz Bick as CEO.
The company made the transition from circuit switching
to IP in 2008. In the same year, it completed the roll-out
of Malaysia’s nationwide TETRA network, in partnership
with Siemens Austria AG and the local operator, Sapura.
2008 also saw the start of the company’s deployment
of a nationwide TETRA system in the Republic of
Macedonia (which is in the process of changing its name
to the Republic of North Macedonia). The company’s
rst IP-based network was deployed in 2009, along a
number of highways in Saxony. In 2012, the company
was fully acquired by Hytera and in November of that
year, Matthias Klausing became CEO.
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