Among the many non-public safety TETRA contracts announced over the past 12 months were systems for the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest in Azerbaijan, the Zhengzhou metro line and the Boao Forum for Asia 2012 in China; Billund International airport in Denmark; the Hannover Underground and the Schwebebahn suspension monorail in Germany; the Warsaw metro and the Adams coal mine in Poland; the Lima metro in Peru; Basque Railways (EuskoTren) and the town of Sant Boi de Llobregat, Spain; Hambantota International airport in Sri Lanka; and the South Yolotan-Osman gas field in Turkmenistan.

There have been mergers and acquisitions in the industry, most notably the takeover of the Rohde & Schwarz TETRA portfolio by Hytera, and Sepura’s acquisition of 3T Communications, which has already led to Sepura’s first combined infrastructure and terminals contract, worth over
€1 million, from a Far East transport customer.

Showcasing TETRA to the world

TETRA is regularly deployed to ensure resilient and secure communications at major sporting events, and the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games were supported by the Airwave TETRA networks. Airwave became the official private mobile radio (PMR) services provider to London 2012, the first time in Olympic history that this has become a sponsorship category.

Airwave delivered the dedicated Apollo Network, a private TETRA network serving all the London 2012 venues. Apollo was used by LOCOG personnel (London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games) to maintain contact with each other.

As the largest international event ever staged in the UK, the London 2012 Games were also an opportunity to showcase the nationwide Airwave network, the largest fully operational emergency communications network in the world.

Delivering on data

TETRA remains unchallenged in its excellence in voice communication, and is also beginning to service the growing demand for data services. While there is much discussion about mobile broadband, dedicated spectrum for critical communications use is not yet on the horizon in many parts of the world. Although the eventual solution is likely to be LTE-based, there are many hurdles to overcome before this becomes reality.

Today, and in the foreseeable future, TETRA and TETRA Enhanced Data Services (TEDS) will meet the data needs of critical communications users. Last year, Motorola Solutions gained the first formal TEDS interoperability (IOP) certification, and Cassidian announced the field trial of TEDS with Virve in Finland. This year the two companies have taken a step further in multi-vendor IOP by announcing that they have successfully completed private IOP testing of the Motorola TEDS-capable mobile terminal on Cassidian’s TEDS-capable infrastructure.

This paves the way for the first multi-vendor TEDS IOP certification by the end of 2012. Interoperability testing between manufacturers has been a major success factor for TETRA, ensuring a robust and competitive market.

The deployment of consumer mobile broadband services is driving demand for similar high-speed data services from the critical communications user community. It is essential that these users continue to benefit from the resilience, functionality and coverage already delivered by TETRA voice networks. TETRA and TEDS deliver low and medium-speed data capabilities that meet these criteria and enable many of the data services through the use of efficient applications.