Public Safety Network
Standardisation, I
believe, is the thing
that will ultimately open
the market up
Looking specically at the coverage
aspect, the connected ambulance
concept doesn’t actually seem a
million miles away from other
single-platform, in-vehicle solutions
already being rolled out by emergency
services organisations. One example
is Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue
Service in the UK, whose mobile
Joint Command Unit – also shared
by the county’s police force – includes
onboard 4G connectivity, satellite
back-up and even COFDM (coded
orthogonal frequency division
multiplexing) video functionality, to
live stream drone footage back to
the vehicle.
What makes the concept outlined
by Karp unique, however, are the
sheer number of connected devices
and functionalities – each with its
own real-world operational task –
incorporated within the system. ese
include the ability to immediately
alert the hospital to medication that
has been administered at the scene,
pre-population of patient data (via
the scanning of the patient’s driver’s
licence), two-way video-conferencing,
body-worn video-streaming, Bluetooth
stethoscopes and so on.
Karp continued: “Moving into
the ambulance, having stabilised the
patient, we then have a 360-degree
HD camera which is so clear that
the tele-med doctor can check pupil
dilation if there’s a head injury. e
connectivity will also save time when it
comes to getting to the right hospital,
for instance if they’re looking after
a stroke victim who then has to be
taken to specialist facilities. at can
all be determined upfront after a
case is initiated, opposed to en route
to a facility, or even worse once the
ambulance has already arrived. is
functionality alone can save critical
time wasted.
“e other side of that is the
opportunity to drill down into the
situational awareness piece, for
instance looking at how many beds a
hospital has available or the situation
on the roads. Paramedic safety is also
an issue in the United States – for
instance, with the shootings which
have occurred in recent years – so
things like the use of body-worn video
in real time will add another element
of safety. ese are huge issues for
reghters as well, who might end up
at a scene thinking they’re dealing with
something re-related and suddenly
there’s a gunman.”
Open standards and
economies of scale
e roll-out of LTE and its attendant
functionality to public safety ocials,
at least on a national level, is far from
straightforward. Reasons for this
include – but are by no means limited
to – questions over which deployment
model to adopt (public-private
partnership, dedicated or leveraging
commercial networks, etc), continuing
conversations around standardisation,
legacy contracts, funding and so on.
Another area of doubt, meanwhile,
is the degree to which the technology
companies themselves will be willing to
accommodate the needs of the sector
as the requirement for specic, taskorientated,
emergency-services-related
technology increases.
As CCT put it to the Public Safety
Network’s Kennedy, is there enough
money available in the sector for
them to actually make the necessary
investment in public-safety-related
R&D and manufacture?
“Ah, you’ve hit on my favourite
subject,” he said. “at all comes back
to questions around standardisation,
which I believe is the thing which
will ultimately open the market up.
If there’s a set of agencies around the
world that are all building on open
standards, the economies of scale for
public safety application become the
same whether it’s in the US, Australia
or the UK. We need to embrace open
standards to get the economies of scale
of the tens of millions of public safety
users to improve the options that are
available to all rst-responders.
“e other thing which becomes
easier in that scenario is the sales
process, particularly when tethered to
the concept of ‘as a service’. e same
kinds of companies that are involved in
that area currently will also be able to
produce increasing numbers of publicsafety
grade solutions if they choose
to, as will new and disruptive start-ups,
which is something we’re starting to
see all the time now. As soon as you
have assured connectivity, the market
becomes increasingly viable because
the tools become available for use all
the time.”
Staying on the subject of assured
connectivity, Kennedy believes that
another illustration of the above
point is the impact which the roll-out
of FirstNet has had on the market,
specically when it comes to spurring
other US-based MNOs into action.
“We’re now seeing other companies
who didn’t necessarily win the FirstNet
contract starting to look at public
safety as a more important part of the
business,” he said. “In other words,
providing some kind of pre-emption
and priority specically for the benet
of those on the front line. I’m all for
the government models and hybrid
networks, but if there’s real buy-in
from the right business model, we
know that services can be available in a
very short space of time.”
When it comes to the prospect of
increased connectivity, the future is
clearly incredibly bright for those in
public safety around the world. e
only question now is how fast can we
rollout more public safety broadband
networks globally to provide these great
capabilities to all responders?
Adobe Stock/wellphoto
20 www.criticalcomms.com June 2019
/www.criticalcomms.com