Expway and Bittium Launch First LTE Broadcast Mobile Devices for Public Safety

Expway, the LTE Broadcast expert and Bittium, developer of reliable, secure communications and connectivity solutions, are offering the first ever LTE Broadcast enabled mobile devices that enable clear and scalable Push-To-Talk, uninterrupted High-Definition Push-To-Video, and error-free large file delivery for the mission-critical communications market. Both companies worked together to integrate the Expway Middleware for PS-LTE (Long Term Evolution) in Bittium’s Tough Mobile devices. Thanks to this collaboration, emergency units are now able to collaborate with each other, in real-time, with guaranteed reception quality even in congested network environments.

Most of today's public safety mobile devices, such as TETRA or P25, are limited to voice communication, and do not have the capability to transmit multimedia data to be helpful to first responders. As a result, emergency agencies are increasingly switching away from narrowband voice to LTE Broadband services. This market is rapidly gaining momentum and is expected to grow by 40% every year, for the next five years, as private and public safety agencies worldwide invest in LTE Broadband solutions.

“Public Safety authorities have stringent quality requirements for mission critical communications, as their voice and data services have to run securely, reliably and efficiently in any situation. LTE Broadcast enables sharing huge amounts of data quickly and simultaneously to all users, freeing up network capacity to other LTE services. We are proud to work with Expway in bringing this solution to public safety markets worldwide,” says Tero Savolainen, Director Special Devices at Bittium.

“Bittium is one of the leading providers of mission-critical devices, and this announcement further proves its drive to innovate and provide products the market needs,” said Claude Seyrat, Expway CMO. “We are delighted to be the first with Bittium, to bring LTE Broadcast mobile devices to the public safety market. Both companies are committed to improve the safety and situational awareness of emergency teams, through the use of LTE Broadcast.”

LTE Broadcast (Long Term Evolution) is an ultra-fast, high-bandwidth communication service. It is also highly reliable and secure and standards-based which allows it to run at lower operating costs than traditional mission-critical networks.

The Expway LTE Broadcast device Middleware, running on Bittium Tough Mobile devices and the Expway eBox For Critical Communications was showcased at the Expway stand #B9 at Critical Communications World in Dubai on November 7-8 2016.