TETRA  |   Messaging  |  2016-12-21

South Tyrol opts for Separate Alerting and Voice Communication Networks

Source: The Critical Communications Review | Gert Jan Wolf editor

Not only do public safety organisations face new challenges but also a variety of new threats. This requires solutions that work reliably even in case of a major crisis.

One precaution for a major crisis is to separate voice communication and alerting networks.

When is a communication system safe enough? What happens if a critical voice communication network based on TETRA, DMR Tier III or for the future PSLTE, reaches or even exceeds its capacity due to an unplanned event? How can you still alert your intervention forces; even if the connection to the control and monitoring systems are interrupted? Several incidents with dedicated voice communication networks being jammed during unplanned events in the last years illustrated how important these questions are.

Markus Rauch, Civil Protection Agency of South Tyrol, takes a stance. His experience: A network uniting both alerting and voice communication devices can suddenly fail during unplanned events. South Tyrol therefore decided to separate alerting networks from voice communication systems. Their solution offers several fallback modes and end-devices that are comparably inexpensive, compact, robust, with a long battery life and great indoor-reception.

The below video on this important topic has just been released by Swissphone.