NIST Awards Sonim Technologies Public Safety Innovation Accelerator Grant
$1.4M Grant to Focus on Research and Development of Open Source Solution to Demonstrate Mission Critical Push to Talk on FirstNet Network
Sonim Technologies, the global leader in mission critical LTE-based handsets for public safety, has been awarded $1.4M from the National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) Public Safety Communications Research Division (PSCR) to accelerate research, development, production and testing of key broadband technologies and capabilities for first responders.
Sonim Technologies and Nemergent Solutions are teaming up to deliver an open source platform that significantly advances the state-of-the-art mission critical voice by addressing both on-network and off-network end-to-end mission critical PPT (MCPTT) on the XP handset. The solution will be 3GPP R13 compliant MCPTT platform with both client and server side elements that are fully seamless and interoperable with existing nationwide narrowband assets.
"Our goal is to accelerate adoption of mission critical voice services on PSBN without the need for proprietary software and hardware," said Robert Escalle, Vice President – Public Safety Market Segment, Sonim Technologies.
Nemergent Solutions developed the MCPTT application stack, which will integrate the core MCPTT protocol services on a new version of Sonim's ultra-rugged XP handset.
"Ensuring interoperable solutions is a critical feature for Public Safety agencies worldwide," said Dr. Jose Oscar Fajardo, co-founder and CEO, Nemergent Solutions. "We are thrilled to leverage Sonim's industry standard handset to demonstrate our open and standard MCPTT client and server components."
The combination of LTE-based MCPTT and Direct Mode/Off-Network communications functions will be tested on Sonim's PTT-centric Android handset by the Atlantic City Police Department and first responders from the County of Fairfax, Va.
"New Jersey is one of only five early builders of the National Public Broadband Safety Network so we're an ideal partner," said Chief Henry White Jr., Atlantic City Police Department. "These are the kinds of technology advances that will ultimately help us better serve and protect our community."
"Communications improvements like this can only make us better," said Mike Newburn, Communications Technology Manager, Department of Information Technology
County of Fairfax. "With the FirstNet initiative coming to fruition, it's time to start building the infrastructure and operations to support it."