Interview
Standing the
test of time
As TCCA is celebrating 25 years since it was founded as The TETRA
MoU Association, there is no better time to hear from Tony Gray,
its chief executive, about the association’s past, present and future
24
www.criticalcomms.com November 2019
How has TCCA’s role evolved since it was
first founded?
Clearly, we are not the same organisation we were 25
years ago. We’ve grown substantially for a start – from the
original handful of founders to more than 140 members
worldwide today. That said, the core principles of support
for and promotion of the benefits of international standards
have remained unchanged. From our beginnings when
The TETRA MoU Association was dedicated to the
development of one specific critical communications
standard in ETSI TETRA, we have evolved to endorse
a range of global standards for mission- and businesscritical
users, not least of course the 3GPP 4G/5G critical
broadband suite.
Furthermore, our structure and composition, for example
of Working Groups and task forces, has also grown and
evolved over time to encompass today and tomorrow’s
requirements and realities, and we have extended our reach
through a number of active partnerships with other relevant
organisations around the world.
What do you think are the main factors that have
contributed to TCCA’s longevity?
I believe we have been recognised as an independent
expert advisor and supporter to our membership. For
example, in this role we’ve been successful in assisting endusers
and operators to make informed and co-ordinated
choices in a world where commercial competition and
proprietary solutions will always necessarily compete with
standardised alternatives. At the same time, we support and
enhance the development and promotion efforts of other
vital stakeholders in the critical communications sector,
including the likes of industry and standards bodies. Thus
as an overarching non-partisan “umbrella” across the whole
global ecosystem we have gained and retained a peerless
reputation and standing as the go-to authority in all aspects
of critical communications.
Which upcoming technologies are you most
excited by?
Let me say from the outset that 45 years in the mobile
communications business have taught me the hard way
that even trying to look and predict around the corner by
a few years to future technologies can prove difficult, if not
impossible. So, in my experience it’s best not to get too excited
or over-hyped before reality is achieved.
With that said, of course, I’m keen to see the fruition of
the work we and our members have been doing on critical
broadband over the last seven years or so in 3GPP, and
particularly what impact the use of applications such as
video, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, etc can have on
the daily lives of our user communities once adequately
hardened mission-critical broadband bearers for such services
are in place.
A huge chunk of the sector’s value lies in
communications infrastructure and the services
that support it. With the use of dedicated
broadband networks looking less likely due to
spectrum and cost constraints and public safety
agencies looking to use public networks, what
can narrowband vendors to do to ensure that all
this value isn’t captured by the large telecoms
vendors that currently supply public mobile
network operators?
As you say and, as usual, it’s primarily all predicated on
the lifeblood of any mobile communications solution, ie,
spectrum. If current initiatives to persuade regulators of
the benefits of making narrowband spectrum in sensible
bands available for private networks bear fruit, I’m confident
there are plenty of applications and vendors standing by to
support those vertical market solutions that seek them. 5G
may be something of a watershed in that respect, insofar as
it introduces more and different bands, plus features such
as network ubiquity and slicing, massive IoT and so on.
I wonder whether the future may see less of a clear divide
There are to my mind still too many
siloes of parochial interest and
so on which need to be broken down for
the community as a whole to truly
reap the benefits of sharing
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