Welcome
MARCH 2019
The march
of progress
Critical Communications Today editor Sam Fenwick discusses
potential mobile working requirements creep, the work to standardise
mission-critical features in 3GPP, and the need to always consider
the boots-on-the-ground perspective
While reading Simon Creasey’s article on mobile working (page 26) and
Richard Martin’s feature on wearables (page 30), I’m reminded of an
observation by Anthony Crosland: “What one generation sees as a
luxury, the next sees as a necessity.” While mobile working is currently focused on
allowing non-mission-critical administrative tasks to be performed on the move,
rather than back at the police station, I suspect that availability requirements for such
services will rise. After all, such schemes, occurring as they do against the backdrop
of austerity, can help organisations to downsize their oces. If there is no desk to
go back to, then such systems have to stay up and running. Similarly, what happens
when all institutional memory of working without such systems fades into oblivion?
ere is a parallel here with the telecommunications sector. As TCCA’s CCBG
chair Tero Pesonen has noted, society’s
dependence on mobile networks means
Availability and
availability and resilience may become
resilience may
a way for commercial operators to
become a way for
dierentiate themselves to public safety’s
commercial operators
benet. e utility sector is also having
to differentiate
to evolve its networks to meet society’s
themselves to public
changing requirements (in this case, the
safety’s benet
rise of electric cars), and Philip Mason
delves into this on page 16.
As many have pointed out, the successful use of mission-critical broadband by
public safety hinges on the use of interoperable standardised solutions. For more on
this, see our coverage of the recent ETSI MCX PlugTests event (page 9), and our
interview with Erik Guttman, 3GPP TSG SA chairman (page 22), regarding its
work to standardise mission-critical features.
James Atkinson’s piece on the Latin American critical communications market
includes the observation that allowing police ocers to see each other’s locations is
a double-edge sword if some of them can’t be trusted. Clearly, while it’s easy to focus
on the technology and assume that its benets and downsides are the same all over
the world, the precise context in which it is deployed must never be forgotten.
Sam Fenwick, editor
MISSION STATEMENT
Critical Communications Today
provides the global missioncritical
community with insight
into the latest technology
and best practice required
to ensure that its members
always have access to the
instant, one-to-many wireless
communications that can make
all the difference inmoments
of crisis.
We are dedicated to providing
our readers with the knowledge
they need when determining
their critical communications
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though delivering up-to-theminute
accurate information on
industry trends, developments,
and deployments, as well as
the latest new products and
services. Our journalists are
committed to easing out the
little details from your peers
that will allow you to draw
on the industry’s collective
experience of deploying and
implementing new projects
andsystems.
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that matter most and provide
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raise their concerns and speak
frankly about their work and
the lessons they’ve learned
while delivering the devices and
networks that the world’s blue
light organisations depend on.
4 www.criticalcomms.com March 2019
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