TETRA Association Forms Broadband Group as TEDS Products Launch

 

By Sandra Wendelken

 

The TETRA Association announced a new mobile broadband working group within the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) that will establish user requirements for broadband public-safety communications systems. The news follows the launch of the first commercial TETRA Enhanced Data Service (TEDS) products at the TETRA World Congress May 24 – 27 in Singapore.

 

Although TEDS offers high-speed data rates of up to 538 kilobits per second (kbps), the new ETSI working group WG4 will investigate expanding TETRA for broadband with a tentative five-year schedule to complete the work and identify appropriate spectrum, said Motorola’s David Chater-Lea, chair of the group.

 

“We’re at an early stage, but the work has started,” said Chater-Lea. He said the group will investigate Long Term Evolution (LTE) and other technologies, noting cognitive radio and reconfigurable radio systems that ETSI has been working on. The U.S. public-safety market has endorsed LTE as the technology it plans to deploy for future broadband networks. “We will work with people to investigate LTE and integrating aspects into TETRA,” said Chater-Lea, although he said WiMAX will be explored as well.

 

The group will also look to help solve public-safety spectrum issues in Europe for high-speed data and broadband. Unlike the U.S. market, Europe doesn’t have dedicated high-speed data or broadband spectrum for public safety. The TETRA Association is working with Europe’s Public Safety Communications (PSC) to address the issue. The groups would like a 2 x 10 megahertz block of spectrum for broadband and are exploring Europe’s Digital Dividend UHF spectrum freed by the transition from analog to digital TV. See “Europe’s Broadband Spectrum Strategy” in the Quarter 2 issue of RadioResource International for more details.

 

EADS Defence & Security and Motorola both used the congress to roll out commercial TEDS products. EADS is piloting its TEDS technology in Finland. EADS officials also announced a pilot in the Middle East for WiMAX technology. The firm has partnered with Alcatel-Lucent on Project 25 (P25) and LTE in the U.S. public-safety market).

 

 

Your comments are welcome, click here.