Big TETRA infrastructure deals in pipeline - Global News

Telecommunications, Feb, 2002 by Ken Wieland

LONDON--The European TETRA (terrestrial trunked radio) supplier community is in line for a much-needed boost. Due largely to a greater government urgency for national emergency organizations to communicate with each other at the scenes of major disasters--maximizing cooperation and effectiveness--a number of large infrastructure contracts is expected to be signed this year.

The largest TETRA contract per capita in Europe will be awarded in Norway. Although Norway has a comparatively small population of 4.5 million, 2000 TETRA base stations will be required to provide coverage nationwide. The contract, worth a reported 500 m (plus an extra 125 m if tunnel coverage is included), will be handed out in mid-2002.

Elsewhere in Europe, Germany will offer a TETRA contract this year for 6500 base stations. As host of the World Cup finals in 2006, the German government wants the TETRA network up and running by 2005. Another large TETRA contract is up for grabs in Italy, with the deadline for the 2000-base station-deal scheduled for this month.

According to Motorola, the value of TETRA contracts around the world stood at 2 bn by the end of 2001, of which the vendor claimed to have around 60 percent. Ole Niss, vice president and director of product operations and business management for Motorola's CGISS (Commercial, Government & Industrial Solutions Sector) EMEA division is upbeat about future prospects. "Analysts are telling us that the TETRA market [which includes service revenue and infrastructure] will be worth around 12 bn by 2005. It's my belief that the [cumulative] figure will be nearer 20 bn. There are a lot of public safety organizations which don't declare their intentions [to use TETRA]."

TETRA was developed by ETSI as an open European standard in response to the need for public safety organizations to communicate efficiently among themselves and with each other. Unlike GSM, it allows rapid call setup times and group calling at the push of a button.

Moreover, as spectrum for TETRA has been set aside across Europe--the 380-MHz to 400-MHz band for public safety organizations and the 410-MHz to 430-MHz band for public operators targeting civil companies--there is the promise that emergency services from different countries will be able to talk to each other directly.

For that to happen, the TETRA 151 (intersystem interface) has been developed to allow interoperability among different national networks (and different suppliers). Tests are due to be conducted by mid-2002 among the TETRA networks of Belgium (supplied by Nokia), Germany and the Netherlands (both supplied by Motorola).

Interoperability trials must wait until then as all three networks have yet to be rolled out to the country borders. In the meantime, the TETRA World Congress (held in Nice last month) revealed that interoperability progress had already taken place with the successful test completion of a group call between Nokia and Motorola systems.

For Motorola's Niss, the obstacles to cross-border interoperability are more political than technological. "We know that we can cross over calls to different management systems, but there is still the question of whether one country's police force should be allowed to cross a national border and make an arrest in another country."

Against the backdrop of increased interest in TETRA (at least for the public safety sector), Motorola announced last month the availability of its full-IP version of TETRA, known as Dimetra IP. According to Motorola, the IP mesh network approach offers far greater resilience than the traditional circuit-switched network, as there is no single point of failure.

A spokesperson for Nokia, however, expressed concern about such an approach. "If technical resilience is based on IP networks, it may be a risk for public safety users as IP resilience normally doesn't react fast enough if you bear in mind the strict response time requirements of mission-critical services," he said.