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Tait also underlined the value of interoperability between products from different manufacturers adhering to the DMR standard – especially for users such as public access operators, who have tended to mix infrastructure from one manufacturer with radios from others. Initially Tait will offer DMR compatibility with Hytera products and later Simoco. “We will actually offer true interoperability and true choice”, Mr Bishop emphasized. “With other technologies, you tend to get locked in to one manufacturer. Of course, we would like to sell a full system and everything to a single customer, but having that choice is important. What happens if the manufacturer no longer exists? Who owns the IP? And who can manufacture your terminals? “When you are looking at a trunked radio system, you are looking at a ten-year capital investment, at least. And it’s not unusual for us now to be asked for guaranteed support for equipment for maybe 15 years.” Tait’s Tier III products will be backed from launch by AVL and dispatcher applications, which are currently being developed by partner companies. Prospective customers will be able to try out demonstration networks at its offices in Huntingdon and Vienna. “Today, radio communications is firmly in the digital era, where one of the leading technologies is DMR”, said Hans van der Linde, Tait’s EMEA managing director. “Public safety and utilities organizations need reliable networks that can guarantee excellent coverage and efficient data and voice communications. Tait is committed to helping our customers meet these challenges by providing the best technology combined with installation and support from its team of industry experts.” DMR’S FIRST ATEX RADIO Also shown was a new ETSI DMR Tier III trunking base station developed by Rohde & Schwarz’s PMR infrastructure division, which was bought by Hytera in August. “This is the first released Tier III base station”, said Alexander Heinz, of the company. And he emphasized: “The important thing is that it’s according to the standard, the Tier III standard. So it has a control channel and in this case two transceivers giving three traffic channels – three voice channels. It can be equipped with one or two base station controllers with redundant power supply.” Mobiles can communicate through the base station in either DMR or analogue mode. Rohde & Schwarz PMR also produces digital infrastructure for Tetra networks. Its largest installation to date is a countrywide network in Malaysia, with 500 sites.
FULL DUPLEX DMR Unusually, the range include products for the under-occupied lower VHF frequencies as well as for high-band VHF. UHF radios will soon be added. Radiodata’s Tier III technology has already been supplied to public utility customers in two counties in Germany. “We have a whole range of systems here”, said Cindy Mayerhoff, on the company’s stand. “We have mobile radios in the four-metre range and duplex, and we are the only ones who’ve developed this. You can’t find it anywhere else yet. “And then we have a switch which is an interconnect to the telephone system and IT system, and also does the network management. You can set up groups, like you have in Tetra. “And I forgot to tell you – the base stations are single-site and simulcast.”
MACHINE-TO-MACHINE TETRA Latest innovation from the company is a compact Tetra radio card, developed in-house. “This makes us independent from others, because we started with external modems and we fixed some bugs and we did research for them”, explained r&d engineer Dirk Reufsteck. “But we wanted to have it in our own hands, so now we have the knowledge, we have the product. If we have to change something, we can do it on our own – we don’t have to ask whoever.” One such development Piciorgros has already implemented is a simplified alternative to some of the rather complex command language used for controlling radio modems – for example, for the common requirement of initiating a packet data transfer.
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