Storming ahead
Our story begins in
France’s work to transition to mission-critical broadband is well under way, with much of
the initial conceptual work complete and the rst wave of commercial partners on board.
Sam Fenwick summarises the state of play, with the help of the Ministry of Interior (MoI)
2015, with the Charlie
Hebdo attack in Paris
(which left 12 dead)
on 7 January and
several related incidents that took
place between then and 9 January. e
latter include the Hyper Cacher kosher
supermarket siege, which cost the
lives of four Jewish hostages and the
attacker, and the Dammartin-en-Goële
hostage crisis, which occurred when the
Charlie Hebdo attackers were located
following a manhunt, took hostages
at a signage company and then were
killed when eeing the building.
ree di erent forces were deployed
to deal with these attacks, each using
a di erent radio network. It proved
di cult to co-ordinate the response to
two attacks occurring at the same time
with this approach, and those dealing
with them felt the absence of the ability
to share videos from the eld.
To address these issues, three
overarching principles were decided –
that every force should use the same
interoperable networks, and that these
should allow the use of broadband
data and video services and must use
provide MCX services over LTE,
using its Team On Mission platform
• Lot 5 (MCPTT-PMR gateways):
Prescom – these will ensure
continuity of voice and data services
between users of narrowband
networks and those equipped
with PCSTORM solutions and
will allow the Ministry to enable
interoperability between a variety of
heterogenous networks for all French
national security forces.
• Lot 6 (integration/consulting):
Cogisys
• Lot 7 (resilient infrastructure):
as of writing, this has yet to be
awarded, and the MoI is seeking to
do so in July 2019.
It is worth noting that StreamWIDE
and Prescom jointly demonstrated
interoperability between LTE MCPTT
broadband networks with narrowband
networks such as Tetrapol, P25 and
TETRA back in 2017, based on an
operational scenario of a terrorist attack
in a large railway station.
is year, the plan is to see the rst
tactical bubbles open for operational
service, with the dedicated frequencies
for tactical networks in place by July.
standard technologies. e PCSTORM
project, the MoI’s response to the
di culties encountered in 2015, seeks
to develop a tactical PPDR network for
special forces that uses standard LTE
technology. It was launched in 2017
and contracts were signed with the
project’s rst six vendors in 2018. e
di erent lots are as follows:
• Lot 1 (tactical networks and
terminals): Athonet – local
delivery of this lot will be handled
by Telespazio France, the French
subsidiary of Telespazio, which is
part of the Leonardo and ales
groups
• Lot 2 (SIM cards): Gemalto –
this includes customised SIM
cards, eSIMs and subscription
management solutions
• Lot 3 (access transport network):
Orange, which will provide the radio
access network (RAN) over a wide
area for the PCSTORM project
with priority and pre-emption and
ensure that other French commercial
mobile networks can be used as a
back-up
• Lot 4 (applications and services):
StreamWIDE – the company will
28 www.criticalcomms.com June 2019
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