Seamless transition between TETRA and public networks

Selex has made a number of modifications to Perseus based on its extensive understanding of the needs of emergency services users in order to meet the challenges that will be thrown up by this transition. As it is likely to be rolled out regionally over a number of years, this means emergency services around the country will be operating on different networks – a headache, says Selex ES business manager John Lyons, that Perseus has been developed to eliminate.

The modifications made to Perseus will allow those at different stages of the transition to work together by integrating their networks to create a single, seamless network. And it will also deliver the benefits of the TETRA system to users of public networks,with the Perseus platform providing the mandatory 'mission critical' communications functionality on broadband networks such as LTE and WiFi.

‘The emergency services are accustomed to being able to make priority calls, to control who can talk when, and to whom, and many other advantages of a dedicated system, but that’s not how the mobile phone operators works,’ says John. ‘That virtual management of networks is vitally important to the emergency services and provides them with the degree of control to manage their use of public networks and access to services not available on these networks. Perseus retains "control" of the end-user communications "fleet", including sensitive configuration and user data, within the users’ organisations rather than with the mobile network operator.'

It is exactly these complex requirements that Perseus has been modified to deliver. While the technology already allowed users to operate across different platforms – mobile, wireless, digital and analogue radio – now LTE capability has also been added along with the necessary public safety features and associated standards not currently available on 4G, which Perseus will make available to smartphone users. Selex is closely engaged with the standards organisation ETSI to ensure that they remain at the centre of the development of these mission critical standards for emergency services users.

And it is ready to demonstrate. In fact, the company has already been demonstrating the capabilities of the system in to the emergency services and will be showcasing the interoperability between TETRA and LTE in real-time on its stand while at B-APCO, with users on multimedia devices talking to each other as they would in the field, from smartphone direct to TETRA device.

‘TETRA delivers public safety features not currently available on 4G,’ says John, ‘so we will be showing how we can deliver those features on a smartphone, whether that’s group calls, talk groups, or emergency notification. The equipment will be running live on our stand throughout the show, so visitors can come by any time and discuss the functionality and integrations we can offer.’