Terminals
to reach coverage equal to that of
TETRA. This leads to a situation where
TETRA systems and broadband-based
solutions will co-exist for a long time.”
Wavelengths and coverage
As might be expected, several
manufacturers chose to announce new
handheld terminals at this year’s Critical
Communications World (CCW).
These included the VHF FT5, which
has been developed by DAMM and
Funktel. VHF makes it better suited
for rural areas as it offers improved
RF propagation in rural, wooded
or hilly areas compared with UHF,
allowing larger cell sites, and therefore
more ground can be covered with less
infrastructure. The FT5 is supported
by DAMM’s BS422 MultiTech Base
Station, which can also operate TETRA
in VHF. In Australia, DAMM has
recently won approval for TETRA to be
used in VHF spectrum.
However, I wouldn’t hold your breath
for massive new innovation in terms of
future TETRA or Tetrapol terminals.
“We do not foresee major changes or
new terminal releases,” says Airbus’s
Davalo, “given the maturity of TETRA/
Tetrapol markets that already cover
almost all segments of professional
radio communication markets. Of
course, there will always be incremental
upgrades, but the big developments
are likely to be in building the
fundamentals for hybrid transition and
offering the capability to integrate them
with security and control broadbandbased
applications, and new-generation
IoT (Internet of Things) capabilities.”
That said, it is interesting to note the
way in which Sepura has been working
to expand the functionality that can
be delivered by TETRA terminals
via AppSPACE, the company’s app
platform, to smooth the transition
to new technologies. This includes
Lost Radio Alerter, which works in
conjunction with a Bluetooth tag on the
user’s person to cause the radio to emit a
loud alert if it is separated from the user,
and can escalate this if it is not answered
by sending a message with ID and GPS
location data to a team leader or control
room. Another useful app is Radio
Asset Logger, which requires users to log
into a radio before use, making them
more accountable for the condition
of their radios and thereby allowing
organisations with pooled radios to see
some of the benefits that are normally
associated with individual issue.
Returning to hybrid terminals and
One of the most interesting factors
within the European handset
market is the increase in importance
of terminal refreshes
that allows first-responders to query
databases using natural language
interactions, such as “ViQi, run a
licence plate”. Motorola Solutions is
working on future versions of ViQi to
allow it to call for vehicle assistance,
take statements and perform foreignlanguage
speech translation. It will be
integrated into other solutions as the
company continues to research, and
collaborate with users on, new ways
to streamline officer workflows and
improve decision-making through
leveraging artificial intelligence and
machine learning.
It will be interesting to see how
quickly ViQi becomes available to
TETRA users and the extent of any
integration with Motorola’s Pronto
mobile working solution for public
safety agencies. ViQi is currently
available in the US and the company
says it is “looking at expanding to other
regions and protocols in the future”.
One good example of technology
transfer from P25 terminals to those
supporting other protocols comes from
Tait Communications and its latest P25
and DMR terminals (the TP9600 and
TP9500, respectively).
Anthony Blyth, its global marketing
director, says: “The TP9500 and
TP9600 are able to share the same
battery and charger technology as
our TP9300 (DMR) and TP9400
(P25) terminals and deliver the same
shift life even though we’ve added a
colour screen almost twice the size
of the TP9300 and TP9400, two
microphones, extra audio processing,
and significantly louder audio output.
Tait DMR customers are benefiting
from P25-driven technology such as
the dual-mic active noise cancellation
that is now a very common feature in
P25 devices.”
While the handset market is
experiencing evolution rather than
revolution, manufacturers are still
making impressive progress, with much
focus on ensuring that operation is kept
as simple as possible for the end-user
despite increasing complexity in terms
of the underlying connectivity. Due to
space limitations, I’ve not been able to
delve into LTE-only terminals, but this
will be remedied in a future piece.
CCW, the event bore witness to the
unveiling of Hytera’s PTC680 Multi-
Mode Advanced Radio (TETRA/LTE),
which has a narrower form factor than
the company’s previous multi-mode
models and weighs 325g.
The company has retained the
previous model’s dual display design,
while layering three programmable keys
below the screen to “put more onetouch
functions at users’ fingertips”.
The PTC680 features patented ‘front
cavity expansion technology’, which
is used to generate up to 128dB of
audio, with clarity also being achieved
via digital acoustic microphones and
audio-processing algorithms. Hytera
is expecting to offer roaming over
IP across TETRA, LTE and Wi-Fi
networks in the first half of 2020.
A change of heart
The PTC680’s reduced size and weight
directly address some of the criticisms
that have been levelled at the hybrid
device approach from within the
industry. It is worth noting that one
previously outspoken critic of hybrid
devices, Motorola Solutions, has turned
an abrupt about-face with the recent
launch of APX NEXT, which plainly
speaking is a P25/LTE hybrid handheld
touchscreen terminal. However, a
company spokesperson says “it is first
and foremost a P25 radio, built to the
same tested standards of the APX line
of radios. APX NEXT adds concurrent
LTE services that are additive and
complement LMR mission-critical
communications.”
They also state that it comes with a
12-hour battery and has an optional
18-hour battery to ensure a full day of
operational efficiency. They also claim
that “it offers exceptional ergonomics
and it is our smallest APX radio yet”
– impressively the APX NEXT weighs
only 15 grams more than the P25-only
APX 8000.
Like Airbus’s flagship TETRA/
LTE hybrid terminal, the Tactilon
Dabat, Motorola’s APX NEXT can
automatically roam from narrowband
when the signal strength is low to
broadband and back again. However, its
most impressive (and long anticipated)
feature is ViQi, a virtual assistant
November 2019 @CritCommsToday 33