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BAPCO Review
www.criticalcomms.com April Supplement 2019
anything between one and ve radios being used within
the airframe.
“e current arrangements are completely interoperable
with the terrestrial Airwave network, and completely
seamless. No-one sits in the airframe, changing spectrum
or the network, it just does it automatically. ese are key
requirements as we go forward into ESN.”
Moving onto the subject of broadband A2G
procurement, he continued: “Ideally, we’d like to align our
new procurement with more of a COTS (commercial o-
the-shelf)-based device. We want to get away from bespoke
if we can, but we’ll see what the market oers.
“Clearly, we want to be 4G LTE, and we also are keen
to determine whether there’s an acceptable service coming
up from our 4G terrestrial network. It needs to be fully
interoperable with the ground-based ESN network, so
that as the aircraft transits through the dierent heights,
the radio makes the changes automatically. ese are the
principles on which the procurement is founded.”
Whatson continued by saying that the programme
requires support for Band 40 (2345MHz), which is the
spectrum it is looking to use above 500 feet. is is the
height, he said, to which coverage is provided on EE’s
terrestrial network. Coverage ultimately needs to stretch up
to 10,000 feet, which is the maximum height at which UK
public safety aircraft tend to y.
Interoperability and economies of scale
As is invariably the case at BAPCO events, the primary
focus at Coventry 2019 – quite understandably – was on
the roll-out of the major public safety networks themselves,
as discussed above. ere was a further emphasis this year
though, with a great deal of new discussion around how
the technology is actually likely to be used, over and above
rolling out MCPTT.
is was exemplied by co-founder of the Public Safety
Network Jason Karp, who started his presentation on the
‘smart connected ambulance’ by describing its apparent
benets in relation to a hypothetical multi-vehicle accident
scenario. ese included the ability to live stream bodyworn
video footage from the scene, instant access to medical
details via the scanning of the patient’s driver’s licence,
Bluetooth-connected stethoscopes allowing multiple parties
to listen to their heartbeat, and so on.
“Every piece of technology that I just mentioned exists
today,” he told the audience, “something which is superexciting
for this industry. I predict 100 per cent LTE
adoption by public safety within 18 to 24 months.”
is prediction, he said, echoing Parkinson, doesn’t take
into account the number of rst-responders who already
carry their own smartphone, which if they were counted
would mean that all those on the front line have access to
LTE technology already. “Whether authorised or agency
issue, it’s almost irrelevant. It’s part of the fabric and that’s
where the environment is going.”
Continuing his presentation, Karp emphasised the need
for open standards, to create interoperability and global
economies of scale. Speaking of this, he said: “We’re starting
to see it across the board now, certainly in LTE with 3GPP,
but also via the use of open APIs application programming
interfaces and the use of SDKs software development kits.
We need to make things work together, with operability built
in from the beginning.”
He continued: “An example of that is in relation to
functionality around mapping, which we all use in some
area of our lives. We all have to agree on what are the
right standards that we want to use, so the industry has
something to refer to when oering its products and services
to us. I need to be able to integrate my mapping system
with my CAD, with my smartwatch, and so on, to give a
seamlessexperience.
“Ultimately, you want innovation on a global scale, not
just on a piecemeal basis. is in turn drives down costs
and drives up innovation. Gone are the days of the isolated
proprietary systems, where you have to build on multiple
dierent platforms.”
ese themes were further taken up by Karp’s co-founder
of the Public Safety Network (and former president of
FirstNet), TJ Kennedy, in his presentation on ‘the Internet of
Life Saving ings’, which took place on day two.
Speaking after the session – which also focused in part
on the willingness (or lack thereof) of public safety to roll
out new forms of connectivity, storage and so on – he said:
“I believe that we public safety need to change the model
where we’re using older technology than most consumers and
most enterprises.
“In the future – and I can’t predict what day that will be –
when 6G and 7G arrive, public safety across the world should
have access to those technologies, as they come out, at the
same time as everyone else. With FirstNet, it will have 5G
added to 4G LTE as soon as consumers have access to it.”
Another organisation that is attempting to look at public
safety comms in a holistic fashion is Motorola Solutions,
which presented a case study looking at cloud control
roomtechnology.
Discussing the company’s data storage and analysis
platform CommandCentral in particular, its head of
marketing EMEA Olatunde Williams said: “e key thing
we’re trying to do is provide an end-to-end workow, from
the start of an incident to the closing of a case.
“When you look at the industry in general, people tend to
focus on siloed areas – you get people who are CAD vendors,
who are radio vendors, and that’s what they do. By contrast,
we are very focused on covering the end-to-end workow.
“Part of our platform is about leveraging emerging
technologies, with a key one being articial intelligence.
at’s going to be transformative, for instance when it comes
to analysing video footage.”
Other topics covered in the BAPCO 2019 conference
sessions included ‘reverse 999’, automation, control rooms
demand, the provision of early 5G, and ‘collaborative
planning and delivery’ in relation to Airwave.
Jason Karp:
‘Innovation is
required on a
global scale’
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