CCE Review
sure that the systems that you train
deliver the task?”.
Building cloud condence
During a session on the use of the
cloud by public safety organisations,
Yann Marston, head of strategic sales
at Motorola Solutions, made a number
of interesting points. He advocated
a hybrid cloud approach and said
it can’t be all or nothing. Marston
added that “when we’re looking at
our cloud solutions, we work back
from the outcome that customers
want to achieve, which parts of that
solution can benet from the economic
scalability of a commercial cloud and
which need to have private cloud or
even need to be on-premise”.
He drew attention to the extent to
which police ocers use cloud services
on an unocial basis, such as using
WhatsApp to share information.
“Even if there is ocial resistance to
the cloud, unocially they’re adopting
cloud technologies, so it is down to
us to give them that ability, not for
wholesale change necessarily but to
migrate function by function into
the cloud. ey’re already becoming
comfortable with it, it’s just the pace of
that journey.”
Marston also said he and his
colleagues have seen a dramatic
increase in interest in cloud-based
solutions. “We’re now seeing people
asking for integrated solutions: ‘Tell me
how this will connect and how you are
going to connect to all of our systems
and make use of the data in one place,
make it easier for our operators rather
than make them the human systems
integrator, so give me something that
is modular and integrated and show
me your journey into the cloud.’
ese are starting to become the
three entry questions for any RFP for
businesstransformation.”
Marston also noted that one
point of resistance can come from
IT managers’ fear that they are
‘turkeys voting for Christmas’ given
that they may see their job security
coming from the need to manage and
maintain on-premise systems. “e
conversation that we’ve had with them
that moves them into the cloud is
that scarce technical resource needs to
be looking at the complexity of what
the force is trying to achieve in the
next three or however many years.
So, if you can get the ICT managers
to think about their future careers
and how they will grow, they then
realise that their time during the day
is better spent looking at how they
manage that cloud infrastructure
and then develop it to achieve their
organisation’s goals.” He added that
the second approach is to appeal to
chief ocers who care about the
business outcomes, not the technology,
and how it is delivered. In their case,
the way cloud services bring no wastage
in terms of paying for unused storage/
processing/ICT resources allows them
“to account for every single ocer and
what it takes for them to be equipped
with the ICT theyneed”.
Best use of modernradios
During her presentation on the use of
critical communications in airports,
Dawn Griths, project manager at
Sepura, highlighted the way modern
TETRA systems allow dierent
organisations to use the same network,
with separation between them handled
through the use of virtual private
networks and encryption. She also
noted that the capability for users to
log in and have their own proles on
Sepura’s TETRA handsets facilitates
a pooled approach to radio use, while
the use of Bluetooth-enabled handsets
and tags helps prevent radios and
other valuable equipment from being
lost – the tags can be worn by sta and
the radios can be set so they will make
a loud noise once they are a certain
distance from their user’s tag.
She also highlighted the ability to
distribute images via TETRA radios
along with information about them –
useful for nding a missing person. A
key message was that “in terms of data
services other than streaming video,
there’s not much we can’t do”.
Her colleague Jon Cossins added
that it is also possible to create
talkgroups based on users’ proximity.
He later explained that in practice
there are probably quicker (ie, manual)
ways to do this and that the most likely
use-case for this kind of functionality
involves conguring the radios to
automatically change talkgroups based
on certain (usually location-based)
criteria. “If a team are arriving to
support an incident at location X,
as they approach or arrive at X the
radios are switched automatically to
the talkgroup that has been created
to manage that incident.” is would
require GPS data or a Bluetooth 4.0
beacon to be present at the location. As
Bluetooth beacons have a maximum
range of around 200 metres, they are
only practical for small incidents or
where there is no GPS signal.
Clearly, there was a great deal of
interesting and topical discussion at
CCE 2019. It was exciting to see both
Finland and Germany are taking the
rst steps towards mission-critical
broadband. At the same time, it’s clear
that challenges around spectrum persist
and that while new approaches around
shared spectrum are of interest, public
safety organisations need some level
of priority access. 5G, AI and cloud
have huge potential, but for this to
be realised, a good understanding of
their potential pitfalls and how best to
manage the concerns of those who will
be aected by them isrequired.
Airports can
use modern
TETRA handsets’
capabilities to
boost employees’
efciency and
keep tabs on
valuable assets
12 www.criticalcomms.com April Supplement 2019
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