TCCA News
DSB’s Nina Myren
joins TCCA board
TCCA has a new board member
following elections at the Annual
General Meeting (AGM) held during
Critical Communications World (CCW)
in Kuala Lumpur in June. Nina Myren
(shown below, right) is senior adviser, strategy
at the Norwegian Directorate for Civil
Protection (DSB), department of emergency
communications. She takes the place of Dr
Barbara Held, head of directorate – general
strategy and central management at the
German Federal Agency for Public Safety
Digital Radio (BDBOS), who has stepped
down after six years on TCCA’s board, latterly
as vice-chair.
“We are sorry to lose Barbara, who has
made tremendous contributions to TCCA, not
least helping to lead the transformation of the
Critical Communications World conference
programme, and catalysing the creation of the
International Governmental Operator Forum.
We wish her all the best for the future, and she
leaves with our great appreciation and thanks,”
said Mladen Vratonjić, TCCA board chair
(shown below, left).
“Nina brings a new critical communications
operator perspective to the board, and we
look forward to learning from her experiences
and involvement in the development and
introduction of Nødnett, the countrywide
critical communications network in Norway.”
Myren has held various positions both
within the telecommunications industry
and the Norwegian public safety radio
network operator. She has broad experience
and knowledge of the field of missioncritical
communications, and an excellent
understanding of all aspects of providing
mission-critical services to end-users, including
technical, political and social aspects. Myren’s
current role as a senior adviser is linked
particularly to ensuring a strategic view on
emergency preparedness through secure and
robust public safety communication and
forward-looking technological solutions.
Vratonjić was elected unopposed to serve
a second two-year term as board chair. Reelected
to serve a further two years on TCCA’s
board were Ali Helenius (Airbus) and Jeppe
Jepsen (Motorola Solutions). Steve Whatson
(UK Home Office) was elected after being
co-opted last year. The board is completed
by Tero Pesonen (Erillisverkot), Francesco
Pasquali (Leonardo), Philippe Agard (Nokia)
and Jason Johur (Ericsson). Jeppe Jepsen and
Tero Pesonen will share the role of vice-chair.
Actica Consulting’s Robin Davis
has stepped down as chair of TCCA’s
Transportation Working Group, after a decade
in the role, and his support and achievements
were recognised by TCCA with a special
presentation during the AGM.
Updates from the
working groups
TCCA’s Critical Communications
Broadband Group (CCBG)’s current
focus is on working with other
stakeholders in the industry (and other
verticals) to ensure that the following
items are included in 3GPP Release
17, prior to 3GPP’s plenary meeting
in December:
• Support for already standardised
critical communications functionality
over 5G NR (New Radio)
• End-to-end conformance testing and
test cases for MCData and MCVideo
• 5G device-to-device, UE to network
relay and satellite connectivity
• In-building coverage and location
enhancements
• Multicast/broadcast capability over 5G.
A Technical Forum (TF) meeting
took place in June in Zaragoza, Spain.
Carlos Ruesca, from the meeting host
(Teltronic), summarised the first IP-based
Inter-System Interface (ISI) test session,
which was held in April 2019 at Teltronic
and went well, as the documentation
(TIPs, test plans, TIC-RTs) could be used
without any problems.
The work on the ISI Terminal
Requirements is almost finalised, only
the TIC-RTs needs to be updated.
Work on adaptation of the TIPs, test
plans and TIC-RTs for testing single-site
systems is ongoing. The document on
the Interoperability Certification Process
(IOP) issues over the ISI is ready for
TF approval and a final draft will be
produced. It was suggested that ISI
Terminal Requirements should be tested
in a combined Trunked Mode Operation
(TMO)/ISI test session, and operators will
identify test cases which would require
such combined testing.
July 2019 @CritCommsToday 9