Infrastructure
Most users understand what
broadband can bring to them and
many have already started working on
their business case and thinking
about how to smoothly migrate
38, only up to 40MHz of spectrum is available (and this
is sometimes shared among several users), so the
bandwidth is not comparable to that of a fibre connection,
but for the services that our end-users need such as video,
it is enough.
For other services including reporting, exchanging
information between people as well as some connected
objects (telemetry, robots, vehicles and some other
machines), the tests we’ve done so far have worked and our
customers are happy.
What are your current priorities and what can we
expect to see from Etelm in the near future?
We have several ongoing innovation projects; I can’t disclose
too much right now, but we will be able to say a bit more
about them in a few months’ time. We are working on
new LTE infrastructure enhancements that can meet our
customers’ many specific requirements. Our products are
customised standard solutions – standard because it’s all
3GPP LTE, but customised because we provide products
that are flexible and agile enough to be configured for each
customer and their needs.
For example, we are currently working on adapting
LTE so that it can handle some shunting procedures in
the transport sector that are currently done with LMR.
I should add that we’re not currently involved in
FRMCS and LTE-R, but we are following developments
in these areas.
What are your thoughts on the transition from
PMR to mission-critical broadband?
There is a need today for broadband, and the market is
getting there. It’s taking time mainly because of issues
such as the fact that the necessary spectrum for private
Nicolas Hauswald CV
Nicolas Hauswald is the CEO of Etelm. Prior to being appointed
CEO in 2019, he served as the company’s sales and marketing
director – a position he held since 2016. Before joining Etelm,
Hauswald also held a range of senior sales positions across
firms including ERCOM, Alcatel and BAE Systems Applied
Intelligence. He began his career as a telecommunications
engineer and brings a strong technical background to his more
recent commercially focused roles.
broadband networks is not yet available everywhere. That
said, more and more countries are providing it and users
are gathering together and lobbying the authorities for
this spectrum. That’s something that we as an industry need
to encourage.
Most users understand what broadband can bring to
them and many of the users we’re speaking to have already
started working on their business case for broadband and
thinking about how to smoothly migrate from narrowband
to broadband.
Do you have any advice for any organisations
that are looking to migrate from PMR
to broadband?
Grow smoothly, think about the risks and don’t migrate
overnight. It’s easy to change technology quickly, but
it’s very difficult to manage the risk if you do so. At the
moment, many end-users don’t want to change because
they’re happy with their current system, so we need to prove
to them that broadband is as efficient and as reliable as
narrowband for legacy services and that it can also enable
new high-value services.
Going back to the idea of a gradual transition, customers
can start by deploying broadband only in some specific
areas, and it is possible today to have narrowband
and broadband fully unified on a unique platform or
interconnected via a gateway, so the users of both
technologies can communicate with each other. They can
still use their legacy technologies for all the services they
have today (including voice) and add new broadband-based
services like video on top of these.
You became Etelm’s CEO back in January,
having previously been the company’s sales and
marketing director since 2016 – how have you
found the transition?
It was quite straight-forward. My appointment was well
received by the employees as well, so the transition was
quite easy.
It’s also come at a good and exciting time given the
transition that’s taking place in the market and in terms of
technology – there’s a lot for us to do.
September 2019 @CritCommsToday 25