spectrum
Finding additional radio spectrum for TETRA users
Mission-critical users need better access to spectrum, both to meet existing needs and for future data services. Risto Toikkanen, who chairs the TETRA Association’s Radio Spectrum Group, reports that efforts to overcome the obstacles are making headway
CEPT, the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations, are now beginning to take a more concrete form. For readers who have not been following this committee work closely, some clarifi cation may be useful. Last summer, ETSI published a System
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Reference Document (SRDoc) asking for, in total, 2×16 MHz of additional narrowband, wideband and broadband spectrum for current and future PPDR networks. Before the offi cial completion of the document, the requirements set out in it had already been under discussion in the CEPT groups for some time. To move the issue forward, CEPT arranged
a PPDR workshop last March, at which over 100 participants debated the requirements and possible solutions. T e main outcome was a common recognition that the need existed. As a contribution to this debate, the TETRA
Association and half a dozen of its members sponsored a research report, ‘Public safety mobile broadband and spectrum needs’, written by Analysys Mason. T is report, published just
egotiations on spectrum for public protection and disaster relief (PPDR), which have been continuing within
prior to that workshop, can be downloaded from the TETRA Association at
www.tetramou.com
Priorities At the September project team and working group meetings, the work priorities were then amended as follows: a harmonized 2×1·5 MHz capacity increase within the 380–430 MHz band to ease congested areas in current national networks;
a harmonized 2×3 MHz capacity addition to enable wideband/high-speed data extensions in the range 410–470 MHz;
continued studies to identify a future broadband allocation. T e narrowband addition target is actually less
than the ETSI SRDoc proposed, but it seemed to be suffi cient for the network operators. T e CEPT project team also launched an internal questionnaire to verify the actual availability of radio channels around 400 MHz. Responses to this should have been collated by late November. Meanwhile the Law Enforcement Working
Party (a radiocommunications experts’ group) of the European Council developed its own input and proposals for the same purposes, resulting in a request for –
the harmonized 2×1·5 MHz addition inside the 380–400 MHz band to be given priority, to avoid extra costs in network extensions;
the harmonized 2×3 MHz wideband addition to be preferably inside the 410–430 MHz band, to minimize TEDS upgrade costs;
harmonized broadband frequencies to be allocated according to need.
Seeking solutions T e law enforcement radio experts are not the only ones producing contributions to this process. T e German Ministries of the Interior and Economics & Industry have been working this year to produce their own analysis of the PPDR spectrum needs and potential solutions. T e needs report by the MoI has already been published and a techno-economic report by the MoEI was expected to be presented to the plenary meeting of the ECC in the second week of November. T e conclusions of that report will no doubt be read very carefully in the groups working on the issue. What will happen next is that the CEPT
project team (called PT FM38, for the information of readers who love abbreviations) will meet in mid-December to review the
PMR band decisions of the CEPT Electronic Communications Committee around 400 MHz: the existing duplex PMR bands 16 TE TRA TODAYW Issue 1 November 2010 - February 2011
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