On 7 October, the BroadWay Pre-
with the lead tenderers of four successful
consortia – which are led by Airbus DS
SLC, Frequentis, Leonardo and Rohill – for
the development of innovative solutions to
provide broadband mobile communication
services to enable public safety responders to be
operationally mobile throughout Europe.
The BroadWay project team consists of
11 procurers from 11 European countries.
They came together in May 2018 to procure
innovation activity to enable a pan-European
broadband mobile system for Public Protection
and Disaster Relief (PPDR). ASTRID, the
operator of the TETRA network used by the
Belgian emergency and security services, is
acting as the lead procurer.
The consortia will now develop the design
of the solution and the procurers and public
8
News
Big growth predicted
for private networks
www.criticalcomms.com November 2019
BroadWay awards
framework agreements
Commercial Procurement (PCP)
project signed framework agreements
Control room celebration
Eleven thousand employees across 230
control rooms worldwide have marked
International Control Room Week.
The campaign week is in its second year
and participating control rooms came from
the UK, India, Australia and even the remote
island of St Helena.
International Control Room Week,
organised by APD Communications,
recognises the role control room employees
play in keeping society safe and secure, as
well as dealing with traumatic and distressing
incidents every day.
It ran from Monday, 21 to Sunday, 27
October and involved teams from police,
ambulance, fire and coastguard services, as well
as critical control operations serving airports,
local authorities and utility companies.
A report by SNS Telecom & IT expects
the private LTE and 5G network market
to generate $4.7bn in annual spending
by the end of 2020, with the market
predicted to grow at a compound annual
growth rate (CAGR) of 19 per cent
between 2020 and 2023, accounting for
nearly $8bn by the end of 2023. SNS
estimates that as much as 30 per cent
of these investments – approximately
$2.5bn – will be directed towards the
build-out of private 5G networks.
However, the company’s definition
of private LTE/5G networks includes
all RAN, mobile core and transport
infrastructure assets that are either
owned by non-mobile operators or have
been deployed by mobile operators for a
dedicated customer or industry segment.
In the context of FirstNet, ESN and other
national LTE projects, it considers the
mobile core segment of these networks
to be “private”, as well as certain RAN
assets such as Band 14 infrastructure
in the case of FirstNet, and dedicated
deployable RAN assets for ESN.
The report highlights the importance
of favourable spectrum licensing regimes
to the adoption of 5G private networks
and highlights the German government’s
decision to reserve frequencies in the 3.7-
3.8GHz range for localised 5G networks.
It also draws attention to the way that
a number of other countries – including
Sweden, the United Kingdom, Japan,
Hong Kong and Australia – are also
moving forward with their plans to identify
and allocate spectrum for localised,
private 5G networks with a primary focus
on the 3.7GHz, 26GHz and 28GHz
frequency bands.
The report also notes that China has
hundreds of small to medium-scale
private LTE networks, extending from
single-site systems through to city-wide
networks – mainly to support police
forces, local authorities, power utilities,
railways, metro systems, airports and
maritime ports. It also mentions the Royal
Thai Police’s LTE network which is already
operational in the greater Bangkok region
and Russia’s planned secure 450MHz
LTE network for police forces, emergency
services and the national guard.
safety responder practitioners will evaluate their
progress through the design, prototype and
pilot phases.
The consortium led by Leonardo brings
together Athonet, Bittium, Proef, Lancaster
University, Iscom, RadioLabs, Università
di Bologna, Telespazio, Telespazio France,
UbiWhere and Vodafone Portugal.
Frequentis’s key partners within its
consortium are Nemergent, Halys and Etelm;
while Euroband and Arico are acting as
subcontractors.
A Rohill spokesperson said: “The
consortium led by Rohill is convinced that
the PCP Challenge is critical to enable true
pan-European mission-critical broadband
communications for PPDR organisations. The
PCP Challenge is a unique opportunity to
design, develop and demonstrate
standards-based interoperability solutions
that match Rohill’s vision of open, secure
and scalable mission-critical
communication networks.
“Together with the experience,
skills and commitment of our
partner Strict and subcontractors
Levi9, PrioCom, T-Mobile,
Genaker, Druid and
PentaTech, we are convinced
that we can plan and execute
the project according to the
PCP Challenge.”
During the week, control room teams
and supporters took to social media to raise
public awareness of their vital work. Almost
7,000 posts about the campaign were shared
from more than 3,000 social media accounts,
reaching nearly 17 million people.
International Control Room Week also
raised funds for two mental health charities,
Mind and Scotland’s Association for
Mental Health. Several emergency services
organisations also staged their own fundraising
initiatives, ranging from bikeathons to
cake sales, each raising hundreds of pounds
for Mind. APD supplies software to the
emergency services, public safety and control
room markets. It provides mission-critical
communications and control solutions to UK
police forces, transportation hubs and airports.
/www.criticalcomms.com