Global marketplace critical to success of public-safety broadband initiatives
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Global marketplace critical to success of public-safety broadband initiatives
It is this model that public-safety officials worldwide would like to follow as first responders become increasingly reliant on broadband—and it is easier today than ever before, because technological advances largely have removed the segmentations created by the use of different spectrum bands. Admittedly, public safety never will have the size of the global cellular market, but a truly global public-safety marketplace would be more than large enough for equipment manufacturers and application developers to take notice.
This already has proven to be the case at 3GPP, the organization that oversees the LTE standard. While LTE was a logical technology for next-generation public-safety communications, there were many who doubted whether 3GPP would be willing to even consider functionality required by first responders, such as direct-mode communications and mission-critical voice.
Indeed, it was a struggle when public-safety LTE largely was a U.S.-only effort in the wake of the FirstNet initiative. But after the TETRA community expressed interest in looking at LTE as its next-generation technology and countries like the United Kingdom proclaimed it would move to public-safety LTE in 2016, momentum within 3GPP picked up noticeably. Today, we supposedly are less than a year away from 3GPP approving an LTE standard that will include most of the features and functionality that public-safety officials have wanted.
If public safety can unite on common functionality that it needs from hardware and software solutions throughout its ecosystem, it can benefit from much greater price competition and innovation than the sector has experienced in the past. The International Forum to Advance First Responder Innovation should be applauded for identifying and pursuing this cause, although it certainly will need help from more established organizations to make this very worthy vision a reality.