Seize the day
The worldwide missioncritical
Philip Mason talks to the Public Safety Network’s TJ Kennedy and Jason Karp about
how broadband-enabled data can make a huge contribution to public safety comms prior
to the roll-out of national networks
communications
sector is in somewhat of a
state of ux, specically in
relation to the move from
broadband to narrowband technology.
ere are any number of reasons, not
least just how complicated the move
to drastically improved bandwidth is
likely to prove for countries wanting
to roll out nationwide coverage. is
has been thrust into the spotlight
again with the National Audit Oce
publishing its second rather damning
report on the state of the Emergency
Services Network project in the UK.
Another reason is that dierent
nation states are moving at drastically
dierent paces when it comes to giving
public safety operatives blanket access
to LTE. e US was incredibly quick
out of the gate with its FirstNet system,
for instance, as was ESN, arguably to
its own detriment. At the same time,
countries such as Germany, which has
only just nished deploying its TETRA
network, are looking at timescales
stretching into the next decade.
It is pretty humbling to realise that
the technology being talked about is,
safety organisations’ slowness when
it comes to investing in broadband
technology. He said: “I don’t know
whether it’s exasperation or passion,
to be honest. What I do know is that
this needs to happen faster around the
world than it is currently.
“LTE has been available for nine
years already, and by now every rstresponder
in the world should have
access to that technology with key
public safety features. e baseline for
that – at least for me – is priority, preemption
and encryption. e model
we’re using has meant that we’re using
older technology than most consumers,
as well as mostenterprises.”
His core rationale for this point
of view is a fairly straightforward,
intuitive belief that the availability of
mission-critical data will ensure rstresponders
are not only more eective,
but also safer. At the same time, there
are a number of organisational – not
to say societal – imperatives that he
believes should also be driving work in
this area. Or to put it another way, the
last thing that public safety partners
need when it comes to technology is to
get leftbehind.
by and large, available now (missioncritical
push-to-talk notwithstanding).
Worse still, the functionality derived
from these solutions is something
the general public has been taking
advantage of for years, for instance in
relation to streaming video in real time,
IoT functionality and soon.
One organisation committed
to highlighting the urgency of
this situation is the Public Safety
Network. Launched last year in the
US, it positions itself essentially as
an interlocutor between public safety
user groups and the communications
technology industry.
Its mission is to “help technology
and telecommunications rms develop
broadband solutions to meet the needs
of public safety”. It was established by
several of the prime movers involved
in the original roll-out of FirstNet,
including TJ Kennedy and Jason Karp.
Over-the-top solutions
Your correspondent spoke to the
former following his presentation at
Critical Communications Europe
earlier in the year, during which he
didn’t hold back in relation to public
18 www.criticalcomms.com June 2019
Adobe Stock/lighteld studios
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