Getting value here and now

While the rest of the wireless world seems intent on squeezing as much bandwidth and speed out of the spectrum as possible, with many different cellular and fixed initiatives gathering under the catch-all generic term of 4G, TETRA has taken a much more measured – and arguably saner – approach to broadband.

While some of these issues are covered later in this article, current TETRA implementations – especially in the commercial sector – illustrate how huge improvements to operational efficiencies can be achieved simply by applying appropriate, stable and well-understood technologies to existing problems.

The ICT sector is littered with examples of projects where leading-edge technologies have been deployed inappropriately, only to founder in a morass of cost overruns, incompatibilities and technical dead-ends. By contrast, numerous TETRA projects in the aviation sector show clearly what can be done with relatively simple technologies – as long as they’re complemented by a clear understanding of the processes and business models that those technologies are supposed to support.

Over the past 25 years or so, many industry sectors have been revolutionized by the application of ‘just-in-time’ manufacturing, distribution and retail principles. By using IT and communications systems to integrate value chains, margins can be pushed ever tighter and delay and waste can be eliminated from the system – even when multiple separate commercial entities are involved in that value chain. 

Keeping it short

“Understand the workflow” is the rallying cry of Richard Redgrave, regional sales director at the TETRA terminal specialist Sepura. He says: “While current TETRA solutions do have a comparatively narrow bandwidth compared with other commercially available wireless technologies such as 3G, Wi-Fi and WiMAX, there’s a huge amount that can be done to improve and automate a whole range of airport activities just by using the standard Short Data Service application.

“SDS might only feed back small chunks of data – such as a user’s location, a free text message or a pre-formatted form – but by sharing that data automatically with all the relevant back office systems within an airport, and aggregating data from other sources, decisions can start to be made based on real-time information gathered literally on the ground.

“Similarly, by using soft-key functionalities in handsets and terminals, users can accept or reject a job with a single red-key or green-key push and there’s no need to tie up the airwaves or a dispatcher’s time with voice communications. 

“While TETRA brings obvious benefits in terms of operating costs, speech quality and spectrum efficiency when compared with GSM or GPRS”, Redgrave adds, “a lot of its success is based on helping wider decision about making resource and asset management go digital and transforming the entire airport environment. We’ve been working very closely with Air France since 2004 – with over 3000 of our radios currently deployed at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport alone – and they’d found major savings in a while range of areas by applying workflow management disciplines based on TETRA.”

Focusing on tasks

This focus on application and usage context is echoed strongly by Marco Scaldalai, senior product manager, airport communications systems, at the aviation IT and communications services specialist SITA: “With passenger figures set to grow by up to 50 per cent over the next ten years and both airports and airlines under great pressure to improve their efficiencies, the importance of TETRA in supporting role-based communications cannot be over-emphasized – especially given that an estimated five million people currently work in airports worldwide. Even a relatively simple application like Flight Oriented Dialling – where user groups are automatically set up on the basis of the flight number with individuals assigned a task-based alias identity which is then recycled as each plane is processed – can deliver great savings, as can the integration of TETRA via appropriate gateways with the PSTN and other systems.”

Scaldalai continues, “When it comes to data-oriented applications, a great deal can be done to improve resource management through the exchange of simple status messages without the need for high bandwidths. XML and Java can be used with appropriate middleware solutions to customize applications to the TETRA environment and the information display and capture limitations of terminals.” 

Decision-making

Interestingly, TETRA’s capabilities are also now being seen as contributing to increasing the capacity of the physical airways themselves to carry more flights. As John Evans, business development director at the airport mobile communications specialist AirRadio explains, “Eurocontrol – the European organization responsible for the safety of air navigation – is currently running a series of trial projects under its Airport Collaborative Decision Making initiative, tying into the EC’s Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) programme aimed at creating a unified Air Traffic Control environment.
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