Welcome
OCTOBER 2019
Different strokes
for different folks
Critical Communications Today editor Sam Fenwick
discusses the increasingly complex and collaborative
nature of our industry, together with its implications
and this issue’s features
As the African saying goes, ‘it takes a village to raise a child’. That sense
of collaborative effort can easily be applied to our – or indeed any –
technology-driven industry. There is an argument that innovation and an
expanding technology are reliant on ever-increasing specialisation, which in turn
means that the number of people who have to work together, often from different
organisations, is on the increase.
In the world of critical communications, this trend can be clearly seen within the
push for mission-critical broadband. With public safety agencies and other critical
comms users turning to mobile network operators (MNOs) and others to provide
them with the networks and software that underpin this technology, our ecosystem is
opening up – but as Simon Creasey discovers on page 21, this increased complexity
breeds problems of its own. After all, when dealing with an MNO, simply getting all
the right people in the same room can be a challenge.
At the same time, it’s great to see that
The rail and public
different verticals are benefiting from
safety communities
each other’s participation in standards
bodies, as exemplified by the railway
will have much to learn
industry’s push for functional aliasing
from each other in terms
in 3GPP and its value to public safety
of their dealings
agencies. It’s worth noting here that the
with MNOs
two industries share similar challenges
(such as the extent to which they can rely on MNOs for connectivity);
one significant difference is that while cross-border comms is an important aspect
for public safety (as highlighted in Richard Martin’s piece on page 28), the ability
for trains to be able to travel from one end of Europe to the other without any
communication issues is a fundamental requirement, hence the expectation that the
migration of its railways from GSM-R to FRMCS will have a long period of dual
running, which requires careful thought to the spectrum that will be used during the
transition (see page 16). I suspect both the rail and public safety communities will
have much to learn from each other in terms of their dealings with MNOs.
To make matters more complicated, as Imad Mouline, Everbridge’s CTO, is fond of
pointing out (see my piece on page 10 about critical messaging), we are adopting new
methods of communication but still hanging onto the old ones. In our business, that’s
probably no bad thing. After all, resilience and redundancy go hand in hand.
Sam Fenwick, editor
MISSION STATEMENT
Critical Communications Today
provides the global missioncritical
community with insight
into the latest technology
and best practice required
to ensure that its members
always have access to the
instant, one-to-many wireless
communications that can make
all the difference in moments
of crisis.
We are dedicated to providing
our readers with the knowledge
they need when determining
their critical communications
strategies and procurements,
though delivering up-to-theminute
accurate information on
industry trends, developments,
and deployments, as well as
the latest new products and
services. Our journalists are
committed to easing out the
little details from your peers
that will allow you to draw
on the industry’s collective
experience of deploying and
implementing new projects
and systems.
We work to stimulate and
focus debates on the topics
that matter most and provide
our readers with a means to
raise their concerns and speak
frankly about their work and
the lessons they’ve learned
while delivering the devices and
networks that the world’s blue
light organisations depend on.
4 www.criticalcomms.com October 2019
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