Cross-border comms
the case of the USA and Canada, a similar commitment to
close co-operation was made between the then US president
Barack Obama and Canadian premier Stephen Harper, and
remains in place. In both of these cases the border is long, and
offi cers need to establish good local working arrangements
with their opposite numbers.
A great deal is learnt from trials and exercises. Th ese need
careful planning, during which the all-important relationships
are established or strengthened. Th e fi ve USA-Canada
CAUSE exercises have generated learnings which can be
built into the local processes as well as feeding into national
programmes. Such exercises need to be repeated at a suitable
interval; the Nordic Barents Rescue events are held every
three years.
Finally, using secure LTE can advance cross-border
communications for public safety. Canada and the USA are
committed to using 700MHz, which will simplify such links.
In Europe, the public 4G networks are in place and can be
leveraged. Th e next step will be to ensure the security and
resilience of these in the context of cross-border emergency
communications, and to create applications such as MCPTT,
messaging and resources management.
Th e technologies are largely in place to achieve this, and
standards work continues. Close working relationships
across borders are vital, and implementation will now
become a matter of political willpower and the commitment
of resources.
of manufacturers; a number of TETRA terminals have
ISI migration capability. Airbus is participating in further
ISI developments, including Mission Critical Services
standardisation to link multiple MCS systems and legacy
systems as part of 3GPP Release 16.
Airbus TETRA nationwide networks in Finland and
Sweden support the three-way ISI implementation in
the Nordic region, as well as work under way to link the
Airbus Belgian TETRA network to Luxembourg.
Tactilon Agnet links TETRA service across borders to LTE
roaming smartphones.
In terms of applications, Airbus is supporting developers
in its TWISP programme such as a vehicle and person
location (AVL) application that shows the location of
end-users, their status and the active TETRA talk groups.
Th e control room or dispatcher can see which unit is nearby
and if they can accept a new task. Th is could be used in crossborder
operations.
Planning and co-operation
Th e original Sweden/Norway project clearly shows the value
of a strong political intent and commitment at high level to
make a cross-border communications project work. Resources
were made available, teams established, and manufacturers
engaged to make the necessary technical changes to the core
systems. Th e joint working groups were able to compare and
harmonise working practices, and validate these in trials. In
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