TETRA  |  2013-11-01

Integrated Command and Control System in the Trondheim control room live

Source: The Critical Communications Review | Gert Jan Wolf editor

Activation of the TETRA network connection will follow in a second step, as soon as the radio network’s roll-out in this region is complete.

On 23rd October 2013, the Integrated Command and Control System in the Trondheim control room of the Sør-Trøndelag police district entered live operation using the Frequentis Nødnett ICCS 3020 V3.0 product.

Activation of the TETRA network connection will follow in a second step, as soon as the radio network’s roll-out in this region is complete.
The new ICCS for Sør-Trøndelag police district started official operation on Wednesday, 23rd October. The “go live” event at Trondheim police station was hosted by local police management, and the guest list included representatives from the Norwegian Police Directorate, the National Police Computing and Material Service (PDMT), the Directorate for Emergency Communication (DNK) and Motorola Solutions (the project’s prime contractor). Regional newspapers and TV also attended the event.

Nødnett is the new digital radio communication system for the Norwegian emergency services. It is based on TETRA (Terrestrial Trunked Radio) technology and owned by the state’s Directorate for Emergency Communication. The network is in full operation across the initial service area (Østfold, Follo, Romerike, Oslo, Asker og Bærum and Søndre Buskerud police districts), and nationwide radio roll-out will be complete by the end of 2015.

There were several reasons for the Norwegian Parliament’s decision in 2004 to set up a new digital communication network to replace existing analogue technology. With the digital approach, emergency agencies can, for example, cooperate through the same network, sharing resources and benefiting from direct data exchange. Motorola Solutions is the prime contractor for the whole Nødnett programme and Frequentis a sub-contractor for the installation, integration and maintenance of the control room systems.

The Integrated Command and Control System in the Trondheim control room of the Sør-Trøndelag police district serves 23 municipalities and a total population of some 290,000. The police district itself has 570 employees.

The “go live” event saw the new control room take over telephony and related functionality from the old facility. Frequentis equipped 10 working positions with its Nødnett ICCS 3020 V3.0 solution and touch-screen user interfaces, and undertook the connection and integration tasks required for the TETRA roll-out. The activation of the TETRA network connection will take place next year, in compliance with the two-step Nødnett implementation approach used by the Norwegian Police. The first step is for the Integrated Command and Control System to go live using the existing analogue radio network. The switch to TETRA follows in a second step, once the network becomes operational in that area. The network roll-out is managed in phases and divided into geographical areas, so the roll-out will gradually encompass more and more of the 27 police districts. To date, the new Nødnett ICCS solution from Frequentis has entered live operation in 20 of these districts.

Frequentis has substantial experience in providing nationwide and networked control room solutions and interconnecting them to different digital radio networks. “Nødnett is a very important public safety project for Frequentis and we are delighted to be able to help make Norway safer with our solutions. The digital network allows the control centres of different emergency services to cooperate using shared technical resources and then benefit from the resulting synergies. We are proud that our highly-capable and proven technology is contributing to this roll-out”, says Hannes Bardach, CEO of Frequentis AG.

The Nødnett project brings numerous benefits and synergies for the emergency services. The organisations work in a common national radio network which also allows users to send and receive text messages and exchange small amounts of data. The network is resilient, reliable, robust and redundant, and provides higher transmission quality for voice communication. Each agency can set up internal talk groups or form joint groups with other emergency services.

Source: Frequentis