MNOs
A meeting
of minds
Business relationships
The push for mission-critical broadband, combined with spectrum and capital constraints,
is causing public safety agencies to look to mobile network operators (MNOs). But given
the latter’s different organisational cultures and priorities, what do agencies need to
consider when negotiating with them? Simon Creasey investigates
between government
agencies and private
companies are often
fraught. Both sides have
different agendas; both sides speak
different languages and have different
knowledge and skillsets. As a result,
sometimes the relationships don’t run
as smoothly as they should. But in the
area of critical communications, these
relationships can’t afford to fail because,
if they do, lives can be at risk.
Over the past few years a number
of business agreements between
public safety agencies, governments
and other organisations from the
critical communications world
have been struck with MNOs to
provide connectivity. So what has
this experience taught both sides and
what do public safety agencies and
MNOs need to consider when striking
these agreements?
One company that has first-hand
experience of working with public
safety agencies is Airbus. It recently
formed a secure mobile virtual network
operator (MVNO) solution in Mexico
called MXLINK, which is being used
by the Mexican public safety and
defence authorities.
According to Tapio Savunen,
strategic marketing manager Finland,
Secure Land Communications at
Airbus: “The solution consists of a
at Ericsson, a board member of The
Critical Communications Association
(TCCA), and vice chair of the
Broadband Industry Group (BIG), a
TCCA working group.
“There are some MNOs that in
the way they are set up today are very
business-case-focused, and driven
based on detailed return-on-investment
arguments, and often they’re expecting
agencies, governments and industries to
have similar fully defined, rigorous and
quantified business cases when electing
to make investments in new technology,
and often they’re surprised that this isn’t
always the case,” he explains.
“Yes, some end customers have
spent time and effort to understand
and evaluate the qualitative and
quantitative benefits associated with
new use-cases, but for a number of end
customers it’s simply a case of ensuring
they have the best professional mobile
communication solutions. As we all
would recognise in our own lives,
mobile communications are becoming
so intrinsic to everything we do and,
particularly to these businesses and
governments, it’s intrinsic to their
operations and any failure in that
can have severe business impacts,”
adds Johur.
Due to the high-stakes nature of
these arrangements, Savunen says
that the technical requirements of the
agreement always need to be clarified
multi-network and multi-operator
mobile broadband communications
platform, with national coverage and
security guaranteed by design. It offers
highly differentiated services of missioncritical
voice and high-speed data
communication. It provides immediate
individual or group communication;
voice, messaging, video and broadband
data, as well as interoperability with the
RNR national radio communication
network and other TETRA and
Tetrapol technologies.”
Savunen says that when embarking
on these types of relationships, the first
thing that needs to be done is to clarify
the objectives of the collaboration
between the MNO and the public
safety agency.
“What is the additional value
MNOs can provide to public safety
users?” he says. “Will they offer data
applications and enrich the situational
awareness to complement the existing
professional mobile radio and critical
communications voice-centric
solutions? What are the concrete usecases
and applications the users are
looking for? The more concrete and
defined the user needs are, the better the
starting point for MNO discussions.”
What Savunen outlines can
sometimes be a problematic area,
according to Jason Johur, strategy
and market development director,
mission critical and private networks
October 2019 @CritCommsToday 21