Airbus Delivers in Test for Future Mission-Critical Voice Calls

Airbus has successfully concluded the first European plugtest for Voice over Long Term Evolution (LTE) for Mission-Critical Push-to-Talk, initiated by the European Telecommunications Standard Institute (ETSI). The company proved that its solutions which were on trial during the plugtest can interoperate with systems of other vendors.

During the trial, Airbus demonstrated that registration, affiliation and chat group calls over LTE were working correctly between the Airbus Mission-Critical Push-to-Talk (MCPTT) application client and servers from different providers. In addition, Airbus voice calls over LTE were transmitted effectively between the Airbus server and other MCPTT application client suppliers. “We also successfully performed a multi-vendor test. Several MCPTT client applications simultaneously exchanged mission-critical group voice calls using the Airbus server,” explains Eric Davalo, Head of Strategy, Solution Portfolio and Engineering of Secure Land Communications at Airbus.

The Airbus system architecture for Mission-Critical Push-to-Talk is based on the standards of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), a global initiative that unites various standard development organisations and sets international telecommunications standards as well as system specifications.

“We benefited from the rich exchanges with other vendors on how they interpreted the 3GPP standard while implementing their technology on site”, says Eric Davao. “This experience will help to accelerate our development on LTE applications for Professional Mobile Radio (PMR). And Airbus will continue contributing to defining standards for future broadband PMR solutions.”

For years, Airbus and partners have been shaping the standards for the next generation of radio communications that will be based on LTE technology. The crucial body to discuss these future standards for the PMR industry is the 3GPP, where Airbus is a driver in the development of MCPTT solutions. Airbus is helping to create the next releases 14 and 15 for MCPPT features.

Last week the ETSI organised the first European plugtest for MCPTT at its headquarters in Sophia Antipolis, France, from 19 to 23 June. It brought together various vendors of the PMR industry and observers from governmental institutions and independent associations.