Cassidian to sell TETRA in North America

Cassidian Communications today announced that the company will sell its TETRA solutions in the U.S. and Canada, targeting the utility, transportation, agriculture, industrial and petrochemical sectors.

"It's very exciting for us," Rich Cagle, vice president of sales for Cassidian, said during an interview with Urgent Communications. "We have the opportunity to offer a complete, turnkey, digital, open-standard technology platform in the North American market.

"On the P25 side, we offer the infrastructure, and then we integrate other manufacturers' consoles, subscriber equipment, routers, etc. In the TETRA suite, we manufacture all of the pieces — the consoles, the subscriber units and all the pieces that are interconnected."

Although Cassidian can provide an end-to-end TETRA solution, the company will not require customers to use only Cassidian products in their TETRA systems, Cagle said.

"If a customer wants to put somebody else's console product in there, they can — it's an open standard," he said. "If they want to use somebody else's subscriber unit, they can."

Cassidian has "great experience" deploying TETRA outside of North America, where it and Motorola Solutions are the market leaders in TETRA systems. Although TETRA deployments in the U.S. and Canada are limited, the technology has generated interest in North America, thanks in large part to its data capabilities, scalability and lower price points than P25, according to Cagle.

"We are in conversations with several prospects," he said. "I am pleasantly surprised with the traction and conversations around TETRA in North America."

Cassidian officials will be available to discuss TETRA on Wednesday and Thursday in Booth 1917 at the International Wireless Communications Expo (IWCE) in Las Vegas.