Good afternoon. Good afternoon, everybody,
thanks for joining us.
This session is going to be devoted to TCCA 30 years of TCCA and.
Fighting for our core values, which is standardisation, testing,
certification for which we believe is very important and essential in critical
communications.
But if you have any doubts, I have a distinguished panel here who will talk about it,
and I think that you are going to enjoy this session before.
Uh Before we start, I want to introduce my panellists.
So starting from right, Jason Johar, he strategy director at Eriksson and board
member of TCCA.
Kate Walton Uh, Chief engineer at ESN sorry, Kate Walton MBE.
Congratulations, Kate.
Chief engineer at ESN and the board member of TCCA Robin Davis,
whom you know from before, is the one from, uh, director of AIA executive director in Actia
Consulting. He's not a board member, but he's for many,
many years very active and working and helping us in TCCA.
Steve Barber from Sepura.
CEO of SEOA and board member of TCCA.
And Tony grey, he's not written there, not announced because we are not sure whether he
would come or not, but we are glad to welcome him.
Tony grey is our former CEO of TCCA and first head of CCBG,
which is Critical Communications Broadband Group, so he will have his say when we start
talking about broadband for critical communications.
Before we go on, I first want to thank Mr. Peter Clements for leaving Barcelona and
travelling all the way here to Coventry just for our presentation.
Thank you, Peter. This shows your devotion to TCCA and our goals.
Well, for tomorrow I don't know, are you going back to Barcelona or not that this,
this is up to you. Thanks for having me and another not so not so
funny and not so not so pleasant thing, uh, our, our long time colleague
and our long time friends uh had our uh.
Tetra Applications working group Hannu Aronson has passed away just recently this weekend,
so just let us remember his smile, his friendship, and his really good
attitude towards what we are doing. He was the one who.
Who proved the words of our late CEO Phil Kidner, who once told not once,
he told it many times, you buy Tetra, you get toys, you get toys and you get data for free.
And Hannu Aronson was the one who proved this, working for many years on applications of Tetra.
So let's remember him. Whoever knows him will know what the person he
is and whom am I talking about.
And now I suggest we start our our panel, uh.
In November 1994, the TEA memorandum of Understanding has been signed by this
gentleman here, and I was digging a little bit because even
I, as old as I am, was not there at that time, but I've had the privilege to meet personally
some of the gentlemen here, and it's interesting.
I came to the conclusion that the.
Composition of this group of people is almost the same as composition of the board of TCCA
today, so meaning that we are preserving our values and that we prove that that concept
works, so we are working in a similar way even today.
So here we have user representatives. We have two gentlemen from home office and
in between them.
Uh, a gentleman from, uh, Dutch police.
Then we have people from industry, gentlemen from Motorola,
from Eriksson. From Eriksson, from Motorola,
who are board members in today, from Philips Telecom, who are board members today calling
themselves Seura now, uh, and also from, from Nokia, we had them on the board as well.
And present here and then we have uh.
Representatives of Etsy, very important.
From the beginning we were devoted to standardisation.
The purpose of this group was to maintain and to improve and to popularise,
to promote tetra standard.
So here is the gentleman from Etsy who was responsible for from technical point of
development of techA standard.
Here is one gentleman who is not represented now anymore in the board of TCCA.
I don't know is it because we are now English.
English organisation we are always registered in the UK but not any more member of the EU,
but the gentleman looking in the mobile phone right side,
he's the one from the European Commission who was actually very important at the time,
giving some necessary providing some necessary funding for the work of the group,
and here are the representatives of Denmark, which was the.
Our first partner for testing and certification from the beginning we were
aware of the importance of such activity of the association, so.
Here now we're going to say a few more words about this,
but I just wanted to point out that these founding fathers were really,
really composed in a similar way as as we are today.
So it's about standardisation.
Here is one handy definition of open standards defined by ITU,
and I would love now to talk.
With our panellists.
With first and quite simple question.
Why is standardisation so important in critical communications, especially usage of open
standards? So we see open standards are those made in
collaborative process, so everybody can make standards with a group of people,
the country, the part of the country, everybody can make standards.
But open standard is something different. It's made in collaborative process.
It's accessible to everybody. It has enough level of details to provide
everybody who feels capable of manufacturing something according to this open standard.
It's maintained for a long time and so on and so on,
but I'm going to ask now my panellists why they think.
Open standards are, are, are, are important for critical communication,
so to start from the industry.
Steve, may I ask you this question, a simple question.
You can ask me the question, yes, so.
Being a I like to call us the meat in the sandwich over the years,
so as a device only supplier.
Then we, our products have to interoperate with every other manufacturer's network and and
their products as well, devices.
So that in itself.
Builds Competition And the more competition you have, The more
innovation you get within the market.
You know, we're competitors, so we're always trying to win more business off new customers.
So we're always driving forward. We're always trying to meet the next problem
that a customer has.
And that competition, of course, drives that innovation.
And that's not just a technology innovation.
All we're doing is using technology to solve a solution for a customer.
And of course, the more competition you have, Then the more you can control pricing.
If you have standardisation, which isn't open, of course.
That's where you fall into a trap.
And there's many instances of that around the world.
Where One supplier supplies the network and the devices, or I guess in the future,
um, the MCX services and the devices and the network.
And it's equivalent Because then You get proprietary implementations.
And that's lockout, and that's no good for users.
And it's no good for developing innovation across the whole market that everyone can
benefit from. Thank you, Steve, uh.
Kate, as a user, would you like to comment on this as well from,
from, let's say user and operator point of view, how important it is to have.
Equipment that's according to open standards.
Well, I mean, the things that Steve has already talked about are,
are also important to users.
Uh, but if you take it that step further, Our users should not
have to worry about who, who a device has come from.
It's a thing in their hand that they expect to be able to communicate with the network and to
be able to communicate with other users' devices, perhaps London fire with Met police or
whoever it all needs to be able to work together seamlessly.
They don't want to think about.
Any of what's happening in the background.
And They do all have slightly different needs as well.
So, so having, having a basic set of, of interoperable open
standards allows, allows them to do the things that they want to do and yet still be
able to communicate with, with their, um, with, with their counterparts in other organisations
and that um that's, that's really important. And another thing that I would say.
It's the Because we're working with international standards,
we haven't got to do everything ourselves, so we were talking to,
to um to to Ari from Finland just just before this, and,
uh, and we talked to Rena from France, and you know, we're talking about all the things that
we're learning. That we can share with them because we're
refining those standards and all those things go back into the standards and they get better
and better over time.
And And we, we, you know, we're specialising particularly in,
um, you know, looking at solutions for not solutions for,
but, but how to optimise the network with our partners from,
from, from EE in very busy situations now.
You know, I ran vendors involved in EE will learn about all of that,
and then it will take it back and re roll it out in other countries and and and we maybe
take things back into the standards and gradually they get better and better and better,
and that certainly happened with Tetra, and it is happening with LTE as well.
I think that Thank you, Robin, you want to add something?
Yeah, I just, I mean, you both both agree totally and what what you said is really
important. I think there's a couple of things that come
out of that one about.
The open standards, the standard ecosystem.
When you you get involved, obviously, you know, those founding fathers,
the way working with Etsy to develop the tetra standards, that's one thing.
When we first started Tony right at the beginning of CCBG,
you know, we went to, I said to Aladdin, we we went to that 3 GPP meeting in Edinburgh.
I think Kate was there in fact.
Hundreds of people, hundreds of people involved in that ecosystem.
So you're not just getting that, you know, from a representing end user's point of view,
get that supplier choice as you say, you provide the devices,
other people provide base stations, bits of kit.
There's everybody around the world is certainly in 3GPP and whether it was,
um, you know, GSM and then 3G 4G, 5G.
Jason being an expert in 6G, we'll get that in there and what's beyond that,
but there are thousands, I think, of people, I think it's 500 people that thing in Edinburgh,
where they're all sat there for days going through ratifying various bits of the elements
of functionality and getting into the weeds and the detail and whether that's things that like
say BT contribute to or EE contribute to Samsung get involved in the supplier ecosystem
and and and again, everybody working together for the common.
And good of creating a standard that then the various equipment vendors and people like Saura
and obviously some of you guys have been invested in that for many,
many years, can then take years you say 25, 25 years, but being involved in
that, that ecosystem and when you first go to some of those meetings,
this is serious investment from those companies wanting to support it,
serious business, but it's very, very important to give the suppliers.
That supplier choice because you're not just tied to one.
I call it lock in. It was interesting how you called it lockout,
but some suppliers like to lock you in and say no, you've got to stick with that forever and
ever. Obviously we don't want that.
We want supplier choice. We certainly want innovation for those end
users, and you can see that, you know, see that around here.
So I'm gonna pass to Tony because Tony was there right at the beginning of CCBG and
starting to to our transitional let's see.
So what's important important takeaway is that we are heavily involved in the definition of
tetras standard, and we as a market representation partner are heavily involved in
transferring critical communication, user needs requirements and wishes to 3GPP in order to
incorporate all of this in 3GP.
But I have a special question later on for Tony. What makes the difference between
standardizations then and now? But before that,
Uh It's my belief that there is some common misconception with standards which should be
clarified in this place.
People believe many people believe that if something is according to standards,
that means that everything that is written in the standard is supported by that product.
Is it true? And then why it happens that products developed
according to the standards, both of them or 3 of them don't work,
one with another, it happens, yeah.
So my question is.
Does it really happen and how this can be avoided and what should be done,
what should be done not to have such cases or to overcome such cases where products developed
according to why I ask this question, I remember when I first,
I'm not going to mention the manufacturer right now, but when I bought my first Tetra system,
let's say I was rather naive and trusted that everything that is written works.
So there was. My request I want intersystem interface to
connect our system with our neighbouring country.
What do you want? Insystem interface?
No, we don't have it.
How come you don't have it? It's written in the standard.
Yes, it's written. We know how to make it, but you have to pay if
you want to have it.
It was maybe 10 years before Insystem interface was completed and used in Scandinavian
countries to connect different different networks.
So this is that misconception for which I believe I know the answer,
but I would love to hear this from you.
So perhaps.
Jason, would you like to comment on this?
You want to come at it from the perspective of a market or interoperability or you buy
two products and both are in accordance to the standards and don't work with each other.
What can be done there? I think it was the case in Tetra and it's still
the case to a degree in 3GPP, although I think some lessons have been learned through this
process, but in the early days of Tetra, which I was involved with,
the standardisation, there was a bid it was.
The wild west of specifications, they wanted to write as many features and functionality into
the standard, created a great rich standard.
The problem was that there was it would take a lifetime to implement all the features and
functions and capabilities.
#1, and number 2, where was the market? Where was the user need?
What were the priorities of the users? So we all got together,
met all the companies within TCCA.
Uh, at the time it was a tetram got together and decided,
OK, what, what were the user priorities and you know what made that fed into a road map
of functionality so we we decided that we're prioritise as a user industry forum we would,
we would prioritise the functionality, create these road maps,
and then create these specifications which essentially.
We called them tetra interoperability profiles at the time,
which is a subset of the standard.
So we decided to focus in chunks on different parts of the standard so that we could all
bring products to market and there would be a market that would be competitive and they would
be interoperable. That was the important bit.
So that was the history there in 3GPP, I would say things have moved on a bit since then
because there definitely is as each release goes on release,
you know, especially with 5G.
And we will see the same in 6G.
People don't want to specify stuff that's never going to get developed and brought to market.
There's no there's no appetite for that.
So I think already there is some filtering going on,
but there's still there still is that possibility that things may not interoperate,
which is why we have Etsy plug tests. So Etsy run a series of what we call plug tests
where They do essentially early integration where they bring products from different
vendors together to test a subset of functionality to to check there's a standard
work, is it correctly interpreted? um.
And, uh, you know, checking bits of conformance to the standard,
but it's not, it's not comprehensive, uh, and also just checking that this feature works with
that and uh if there's any misunderstanding to clarify that.
So that these are the sorts of things that are going on,
have happened in the past and are going on now.
I'll stop there because I can carry on, but we will come in more details later,
come back to the testing and certification to try to spot the difference between
testing Tetra equipment according to Tetra standard and nowadays broadband equipment
for critical communications. It appears to be much more complicated today
than it was it was before, but let's come back to Tetra interoperability process.
As far as I remember, the first the first session and the first results happened in
1999 in the UK in the Home Office for the meeting and then there was some first
certificates have been issued there and apparently it continues till today.
So Tetro interoperability process is still active and new interoperability certificates
have been issued and Steve, you as a manufacturer, could you say a few words about
importance from your side or whatever regarding the interoperability process of Tetra?
Well, taking a step back to Jason's point about within Tetra standard
we try to, or we as an industry tried to put every bit of functionality we could think of in
there because that's what people ask for, and we probably ended up as manufacturers,
all of us probably implementing.
80 to 90% of it.
But people don't realise that that Tetris standard is still being worked on now.
So there's updates to the standard.
There's new security enhancements, new algorithms, for example,
to keep it very relevant.
From an interoperability perspective.
Then um.
I think it's fair to say again, my independent vendor hat on,
um, over the years we had many trials and tribulations where we went to test sessions
thinking we were complying with um functionality, which you were.
And then when you supply that in the field.
Certain things don't quite work as you expect.
So what we did, and often that's Proprietary parts and protocols
or additional data.
Um, used in a different way by different manufacturers.
But all of that gets fed back into the standard.
So the Tetris standard, I think it started, Kate, you'll probably run it 91 or something?
Yeah, yes, if we go pre tetra MDTRS and whatever else it was
called beforehand, but we've still got people in our organisation who were there at the very
start, who are still writing and supporting the Tetra standard,
as well as the 3 GPP standards.
So, um As an organisation, We've all learned a lot and all the other
manufacturers have, and what we need to do is take that.
And use that to the benefit of our customers when we start implementing more
thorough IOP within 3GP standards and broadband.
Thank you very much, Bryant. This is, this,
this is the point of, of, of all that we are doing actually in in in this respect.
And you can comment and then I'll ask you a question.
Oh, OK, double trouble.
Yeah, I just wanted to throw in here when we're talking about all this standardisation and
collaboration between what are essentially competing organisations and
Actively competing organisations, not that you care as users or as interested
bystanders, but it's just amazing to think how much collaboration is going
on there in this standardisation and interoperability testing and so on and so forth
exercise, but all to the mutual benefit, so.
The manufacturers who are, as I say, competing furiously in the market wouldn't
be there in the standardisation process and collaborating and putting all that effort and
time into the standards work unless they saw the benefit,
and that's. A part of what we started with was what are the
benefits of standards.
They're clearly defined by my colleagues, but it's just amazing to
think how important all that work that's going on is between what are,
as I say. Vicious competitors in every other sense.
Thank you. Honestly, but this is
this is internal, but the board of directors of TCCA is something like out of time
and space, you have really competitors, strong competitors representing serious companies who
are working together and trying to find a common denominator for the benefit of customers,
and this is something else, but we have to brag a little bit.
And uh we are when we are there already, I want to mention just that.
As Steve said, Tetra standard is being developed today as well,
and we are maintaining that group in Etsy, which is called TCCE,
and we gave the leader of this group, and the interoperability process is being maintained
continuously throughout this 25 years since it started in 1989 and it's still
happening today, but At certain points, TCCA came to the conclusion that
based on user requirements, based on the development of technology,
based on the moment of safety and security in the world,
we should move somewhere else, and it was maybe 1012 years ago that the idea about
MCX was born in the Triangle TCCA3GPP.
And then uh Robin mentioned a couple of words about this meeting in in in Edinburgh,
but can you, since you are, you are there involved, can you say a few words,
Tony, about how it happened and why it happened actually?
Yeah, sure, and and the first point to say is Robin's quite right,
a room full of 500 people was a complete culture shock for us,
little Tetra world coming to the wider 3GPP world,
but how did we get there fundamentally with with the guidance and support of Etsy,
who are a driving member of of the.
Third generation partnership project 3GPP and it was essentially their suggestion
that OK, if you're saying that you need.
In quotes Tetra 2 or Tetra 3, even something that goes beyond
the voice and limited data capabilities of standard tetra,
then you should really think about being in the global environment of standardisation
rather than doing it in.
Etsy as a specific kind of critical communications type so you don't see the
slide, but it's written from purpose built network to multi-purpose network.
There you are. So essentially that that was was a morph
towards. Basing ourselves in the what had up to that
point been commercial technology for mobile phones, um in standardised in 3
GPP but, Creating the standards that would make those
standard vanilla mobile phones applicable for critical communications use
and That in itself ultimately led to something which was
unique at that time in 3GPP of the creation of a new working group.
Which was entirely focused on the application of mobile communications
to critical work, and that has subsequently expanded into rail
and transportation and utilities, and everyone else who traditionally would have been
tetratype users being part of the standardisation of releases of
3GPP standards.
And just as an aside, at that time it was being said, OK,
this is going to mean that critical communications is in is using LTE.
Um, which in fact at that point I, in my innocence, didn't know what LTE stood for,
and I guess at some point I assumed it meant long-term employment and and that has in
fact turned out to be the case.
Yeah, it is what I remember, it was actually critical communications entered
into standardisation when 4G was almost done, so it was a success to first to tell
3GPP, OK, now we need us to be included as well. It's not enough that you almost completed and
that is a huge thing to be this tiny voice at the back of the room.
500 people that is only represented by maybe 2 or 3 people saying,
oh by the way guys, and what about us?
and persuading those manufacturers and those network operators and all those traditional
contributors to standardisation in 3GPP that oh yeah, maybe there is worth in creating
standards specific to the use of this.
Type of equipment in critical communications that was an uphill battle,
but we were successful and we continue to be successful in having our voice heard and
creating standards that are going to be used around the
world and are already in some cases in use around the world for.
Broadband critical communications.
Did you want Kate to add?
Yes, so, um, I think we, uh, we hit a sweet spot really when we,
uh, when we started going to 3 GPP meetings.
Um, I, I, I was told by my team, well, that's they they're massive meetings.
Nobody's ever going to take any notice of you lot.
And, um, uh, uh, and, and I rocked up along with some colleagues from Firstnet,
um, and, uh, and they did listen because, um, because.
LTE was becoming ubiquitous. They'd finished,
finished the standards. I'm not sure the standards are ever finished,
but um they were looking at how to, how to apply the
standards to different sectors and, and we hit that sweet,
sweet spot, uh, and, and have continued to exploit that sweet spot now and um and
and it's, you know, it's.
Good good thing that we got to that point and the sweet spot,
I guess is critical communications is one.
It's all of users of critical communications are one critical communication,
not any more different types of end users and verticals and the other thing is that we've
kind of hitched ourselves to this evolving bandwagon and so they
The the the solutions grow with those commercial standards,
and we haven't got to do all the heavy lifting on all of the underpinning bits of the standard,
the RA and and and all the basic sort of transport stuff.
That's all done.
We've only got to do the critical stuff that sits on top.
I was just going to add you touched on it, but we had great support and Tony,
from, you know, from government, so obviously you know UK government was there,
as you say, Firstt was there, was there, you know, US government was there obviously on the
back of 911 with the spectrum and what Obama had done there with regards to critical
communications broadband, and there was a real drive for this additional market.
You say, partly timing, partly sweet spot, but there was an awful.
We had a lot of support. We had a lot of backers.
I know you spent a lot of time on the plane running around the world,
but we had, we did have a lot of support and a lot of backers driving that,
and manufacturers and network operators and the likes of EE they've disappeared now,
but the likes of EE and Vodafone and people were really quite enthused and willing to
willing to help, correct?
Well I just want to add as well to that to all of that,
the sweet spot as well, putting aside features for a minute,
MCX features for a minute, the performance of the networks when it reached LTE had reached
such a point that it could potentially potentially substitute.
Yeah, it could provide the same functionality, putting aside the MCX development.
That it could. So I think we've reached that point because
before that point 3G was, it was not possible. It was not possible to put a tetra feature set,
you know, essentially onto a cellular commercial network uh technology,
it wasn't possible. OK, uh.
Oh yeah, just holding the place holder.
Uh But in order to have one standard functional, to have
it being useful to users, it must be embraced by manufacturers and by the
users community.
And now we have we have the situation that operators and
manufacturers of 4G and 5G equipment and cellar
equipment accepted and embraced critical communication standards and
if we see the economies of scale, it is I don't know, billions of users of ordinary equipment
to a couple of millions of users of critical communications and still it's
embraced by the industry, it's embraced by the operators and Is it because it was
it was supported by government officials like in the US where there was a huge investment
in FirstNet or ESN project that started in the UK or there are some other
reasons why these standards were embraced because I think this is also one of the turning
points when if you have standard.
That nobody wants to make anything or to sell, doesn't see the the economy,
the reason for this, then it's not useful.
So, is there a comment on on this? Why did it happen?
Um, I think for us we Historically, always start with listening to the end user,
looking at, and I mentioned earlier on about solutions uh for end users.
And it was clear while.
Tetra itself delivered a fantastic mission critical service.
Users wanted more, and you started seeing more and more users carrying around smartphones to
enhance what they didn't have on their Tetra device.
So we saw that change.
We saw the change in Obviously, technology and development and what you can do with broadband,
but more importantly, the people that are using the products and traditionally use Tetra have
always used walkie-talkies, let's call them that, walkie-talkies.
But it's younger New operating Instructions coming in for all
organisations, younger people.
So we saw this transition coming. We spoke to our own customers.
We actually started investing for those of you that were around in 2015 here,
we actually had an LTE rugged hand portable then.
Um, albeit we didn't get much interest at the time, but that's a different discussion,
but it was a demo.
Um, but what we're doing, we're testing the market, and that's enabled us.
To prepare for the market as it comes, we can see it coming.
We've invested heavily for 3 years.
Excuse me. We'll continue to invest in our portfolio
because that is a natural transition that a lot of our customers are going to have.
They need to make best use of broadband.
and ultimately, that will be the solution. If you look at the kind of money that's
invested worldwide into technology.
Uh, in wireless technology, that's exactly where it's going.
So we need to ride on the back of that.
We need to provide innovative solutions that deliver customers' requirements.
Uh, and we need to do that in a competitive way. It's no different to where Tetra was.
30 years ago when that was being dreamt up, the world's changed and we've got to change with it.
Another industry member comments or if there is one not necessarily as Steve
says that it reminds me of the first question you asked,
which is, you know, what are the benefits of standards and I definitely economies of scale
is one of the other things we didn't mention, but I think it's implied,
and I think that, you know, you look at 3GPP it's a global market,
it's a global market. Tetra is a global market too.
and now we have 3GPP with 4G, 5G, 6G in 2030
coming, but the market is huge and there are billions of dollars,
euros, pounds being invested into it.
You have to write that. You have, you know, it doesn't make sense to
compete with that. It's it's impossible.
So you have to, you have to benefit from these macro trends.
I mean, just to add to that and underline that comment that I've made now Jason supported
regarding riding that wave.
In the Tetraday we developed our own IP.
We designed our own chip sets, most, a lot of us.
They are proprietary to us to deliver that functionality.
And we held that IP.
Well, now we're riding in the back of Qualcomm, in effect,
everyone is. In the device world our new member.
Um But it's really actually quite refreshing to see.
A manufacturer like that.
That gained, investing billions, turning over billions has looked at a relatively small niche
area, which is critical communications and has decided to invest in that.
And that investment by Qualcomm allows the rest of us to ride onto the back of that investment,
but more importantly, it should accelerate the market and allow us to innovate and deliver
sooner. And if I may say that a small contribution to
that decision of Qualcomm was from TCCA coming as well,
right? This is one photo about timing.
I want to show it, although I must say we changed this part most of the time,
moving a little bit to the future of this, but this is.
I think if you read carefully what Adrian is and those of you who don't know who is Adrian
Kres, he was the technical CTO of Etsy and secretary of 3GPP recently
retired, and he is the one who has standards here and one of the key people from
standardisation community. Who we are working with in all this,
we are talking about standards.
So his mantra about timing when developing standards is written here.
So I don't think we should add anything there. So whatever you think it will happen in a
certain time, it will not. It will be different.
So but it will happen and this is the most important.
It will happen. And then let's Let's say a few words about
These 3 statements we want to say about
standardisation and certification. They are quite simple.
So only open standards give you full interoperability and multi-vendor market.
Only testing ensures compliance to open standard for the reasons we mentioned,
and only requiring certificates from the user community in the tenders will
enforce testing.
So this is altogether something that our our head of our technical
working group, Harold says as standards and testing mantra.
Yes, just one point on that, it's very, very important we found this from the Tetra days,
but now so with broadband that.
Whoever witnesses that testing, And produces those certificates has to be independent from
all the vendors. It's critical for credibility.
Um, and we found that very, very well in Tetra and I'm sure it will do in broadband.
For this, for this TCCA works with the Global certification Forum,
which is World renowned testing organisation how to define it is used
by GSMA massively.
We wanted and we invited colleagues from GCF to be here today to tell us more
about as they are really competent to tell us more about the testing of broadband,
but guess what?
They are all in Barcelona and they didn't want to travel like Peter did to be in our
presentation. So but we have a very close cooperation and
what we managed so far together with them is testing of MCX clients,
and there are some first manufacturers who got certified MCX clients,
one of them exhibiting here also, and the next.
I'm not going to bother you with this, so this is the one,
and now we believe also that it's very important to do the MCX server side testing
because of different architecture of 3GPP critical
communication systems where MCX server first.
Or maybe some of you should, I should ask why why am I holding the the the microphone about?
About different stakeholders who are involved, it's not just you buy devices from one side,
you buy MCX clients, you buy the MCX server, you buy everything from different sides.
It's how it becomes really important to test all this,
but you should be better than I.
I'm looking at the audience and I think I think most people,
if not everyone here knows the difference between 3GPP and Tetra Tetra.
This MCX application is embedded in the network, whereas with 3GPP it is a separate entity,
it's a separate application, separate piece of equipment.
So and in that respect, GCF, what GCF normally does is it's testing a device
to see if it conforms with the standard and traditionally GCF has not
tested any part of the infrastructure.
But what we've managed to do in collaboration with them is persuade them to look into
testing the application server to application server interface so that because in the future,
today many networks have one MCX application.
Deployed today, but in the future they may most likely they'll have more than that,
might be serving different sectors or even different organisations,
but the likelihood is that this will be needed and therefore there is interoperability is an
important aspect of that interface in order to enable competition and innovation.
Anybody else wants to
Only just a small word of caution, and we touched on it in the original
Tetra standardisation process.
Just because it's written in the standards doesn't mean that every manufacturer or indeed
any manufacturer will actually pick it up and implement it.
And even in that case, when we're now talking about mobile operators,
even if their vendor of RA equipment or whatever has implemented the
particular standard required.
It's up to the mobile network operator whether they decide to implement it,
so there's several levels of uphill battle persuading in the case of Qualcomm
that it would be worth their while investing in implementing.
The critical communication elements and device manufacturers will be able to pick that up,
but the mobile operators themselves need the impetus of having a home
office drive or a first net drive or the requirements in most of the other
European countries now that.
From their commercial perspective, make it worth their while implementing the standards in
their networks. Thank you, Tony, um.
I have one. Uh
Everybody is talking about 6G.
It's nobody experienced 5G actually, but.
Everyone's talking about I haven't, I haven't mentioned besides being the board member.
Jason is alternating from being head and the deputy head of our big industry group,
which is broadband industry group which we call BIG Group.
So this is why he got the mic when I started talking about the future about 6G.
Jason, is it true that even numbered technologies are good and odd numbered
technologies are not?
This is a story that that is well established.
The serious question is about what are we
going as the SCCA to do as a market representation partner when collecting
requirements and preparing and what are we going to push in front of 3GPP as
our wish for the future generation of critical communication which is by the sequence will be
6G. So in LTE we said we were late to the party,
but we still managed to influence this time around, and actually with 5G we were there at
the beginning, but we're still learning.
I think with 6G now is the time to influence from the beginning.
So and uh and what we did last year, no, no, no, it's OK.
I can remember, I've memorised it.
what we did last year within TCCA across the user and industry community is try to
consolidate what we would like to see in 6G, just some key themes.
We couldn't get into the details because otherwise we'd start disagreeing with each
other, but as long as we could get the key themes to begin with and we can build from
there. And these were some of the key themes that came
out. And it's not to say that these aren't present
in 5G or 4G, it's just that they are a continuous evolution enhancement to that.
And here are some of the areas that we have, so you know,
guaranteed service, I can, we don't need to go into the other slides.
Let's keep it on this one. But um you know guaranteed services about we
know how important in critical coms end to end service performances.
We want that's why it's mission critical.
So we want to see further enhancements to that, I things like having the user community
operators be able to.
Measure track, monitor the performance of the network and and for the network to auto correct
if needs be to make sure that that performance is met.
So there are things like that that will be talked about,
discussed, and developed.
Then there's deployment and coverage.
One of the, I'm not going to go through all of these, but basically in deployment and coverage,
one of the. One of the things that's very relevant right
now, which is talked about within the scope of 5G is non-terrestrial networks,
so use of satellite communications to complement ground-based communications,
and in 5G it's sort of an add-on type service, and I think the concept with 6G is that it will
be an integral part of the overall service.
So that's the difference here.
And then I think on resilience and robustness again, it's all about what you know,
today a lot of this is dealt with through system engineering of networks,
so good system engineering means you can develop high availability networks.
But the question we've we're asking ourselves can we do more to the standard to make it even
more resilient and robust? And there are some ideas in there floating
around. And then finally, I mean, one of, one of which
was this, you know, GNSS which is used for timing of networks.
So for certain networks timing is essential, so it's how to make it more robust,
for example, in situations like that and then security finally,
there are always enhancements from every generation regarding security.
Some of the ones that we're looking at there are making it more robust to uh interference,
uh whether it's deliberate or otherwise, and then also making it quantum safe,
so there'll be a study into what is needed to make it quantum safe.
OK. Thank you.
Anybody would like to add something?
Um, this is not to have a dig at Jason whatsoever, but I'm acting as what
one of our esteemed colleagues used to say was devil's advocate advocate of the devil.
If you walk around this show or or CCW or any show where there's a lot of
users around.
Some of them might say.
Why on earth are we talking about 5G or even 6G?
We haven't even done 4G yet. Don't forget that was long term employment.
And it has turned out to be so, so you know, just advocate of the devil,
why do we bother if we haven't even finished the first one?
No, but I wouldn't we say that those are two separate processes.
The speed of achieving something is one thing, but if we are making standards,
then it's another thing, and we must be engaged in supporting and when they are going to
be made.
Remember the timing sentence of Adrian's craze and when they are going to be introduced,
that's something else, but we can't sit.
We can't stop. That's I, I was there with Tony in in Madrid.
We had a first meeting when Adrian came along and uh Dave Charles Lee,
who was in that original photo up there a few other bits.
Duncan, in fact, Duncan Swan was with me, and we all looked at each other and said,
what's this LTE thing? and Tony went long term employment.
So we're here how many years later, 20 odd years later,
and I can confirm, Tony, that it's definitely long term employment and we're,
we're still going, and I know Kate wants to, wants to say a bit about 4G and 5G and 7G and
8G. I think, um, although you're right, Tony,
that the people are.
You know, we obviously we have in the UK we haven't yet transitioned onto onto 4G.
What they want to know.
Is that they're not getting into something that is going to come to an end.
They want to know that they've got an evolution path forward.
And so, so although, you know, although you've got a point,
it's not, it's not, not the full point.
I just to while I've got the microphone, the other interpretation about the G's is that the.
The next generation does the things that the previous one promised to do,
and I think that's probably a better.
That's quite, quite a good conclusion of this discussion, but I will say sorry,
the Gs don't actually matter anymore, but what is important,
and you touched on it that, is that extra functionality, that extra computing power,
that extra things that.
That G can do being able to be fed back in that then can enhance the standard,
enhance the capabilities, enhance the services, the gidgets,
the widgets, whatever you make. I've never really been able to work that out,
you know that, but I bought a load, but, but I just give it to users,
uh, but, but you know, so, so it is an evolutional path,
but we sort of get into because we are now on that wave as we talked about.
And that evolution is set, what the users as you say,
they care about, you give them something they want to evolve.
They don't want to be able to throw it away and start again or train train all over again,
and it's a, it's, it's a lot of transition pain and so on and so forth.
So once the UK gets there, it's in a safe place and it moves on,
and LTE will just keep on with the long term employment, Tony,
until forever and ever and ever, my friend.
Take care I mean well. Before we congratulate the birthday to
ourselves, I would like to ask one final question to everybody in a few sentences.
We live in the world of increased security and
increased complexity of security and safety risks in the very fast advancement
of technology.
Where critical communication needs are evolving quickly, how do you see the future
of TCCA related to critical communications, but the future of TCCA as an association?
Can we stand another 30 years, or do you have any
quick thoughts about this?
You have the mic, so you may start. I'll start.
Yes. Well, in short, I think TCCA will outlive me.
And I think TCCA needs to continue to do the great work that it has been doing for the last
30 years and will continue to be a driving force behind all the great work that's
required to be able to deliver the features and functionality that users really require.
So for me, TCCA is an ongoing project and will continue to be so.
I can only echo what Tony's just said um.
What people forget.
Yeah, it will outlive me.
I'm 61 this year, so um.
But more importantly, if you look back at what The TCA Which isn't
an organisation, really, it's its members.
That's what TCA consists of and the knowledge and know-how and the experience within that
membership. It's constantly being replenished as we get new
members. As well as younger members.
So it will play a vital part in continuing to specify, standardise,
support, guide.
The future of wireless coms and connectivity, whatever that looks like in 30 years' time.
Well, I hope, gents, I'll still be here in 30 years, so I'll blow the uh birthday cake out
for you, the candles on the birthday cake out for 60 years.
Um, but I mean you've echoed a few interesting things and when you think about the start of
those founding fathers, they did come from different suppliers and some of them,
we touched on it, you know, some of them were a bit aggressive and so on and so forth,
but when you actually look at it, I think TCA, it's moved forward as a family,
a community. People come along with loyalty,
dedication, passion, enthusiasm.
They care about the users. They care about putting Um,
the right kit in the people's hands. They care about the open standards,
the ecosystem, the price, all the things we said, the innovation,
and all of those things, and, and yeah, TCCA will still be here and it will evolve,
as we have a.
and as I say, I will be here.
Will Babco be here in 30 years, so if it is, then, then we'll be here,
I'll be here with Bath, and we will blow out the uh the can.
Noel will be here as well, and we will blow out the candles on the 60 years.
Um, what do you think? I don't plan to be around that long,
but, uh, um, uh, but I do think that there will continue to be,
there will continue to be um uh uh critical communications needs,
and I think the role of TCCA in bringing together industry,
users, operators, um, uh, everybody involved in,
in, in critical communications will continue to be vital,
um. You know, you can do some of it at standards
meetings, but in the only in the margins, and you just need that kind of more
um collaborative space where where nothing's sort of off the,
off the table. You can talk about all of the things that are
important to the driving that standard forward.
Thank you. So I think in in in short, uh, we'll be here as
long as we're needed. I think the short answer.
Let's try to be more precise, and I think we're all volunteers.
I mean, a lot of us volunteer our time on top of our day job and so we're doing this for more
than for a greater purpose, not just for business.
Thank you. Thank you all.
unless we have some questions from the audience for this esteemed panel.
No, I have two remarks.
One is The critical communications world will happen in Brussels in June,
so please join. There will be an opportunity to learn and hear
much more about critical communications and about what's happening in this world.
And the second is.
Our stand is down there.
I guess we have plenty of cupcakes there and some coffees unless someone visited the stand
59:53.590 --> 01:00:00.469 while we are here and please join us, join us for a for a small celebration of our 30th
01:00:00.469 --> 01:00:04.310 anniversary. And third, please let's give a round of
01:00:04.310 --> 01:00:10.189 applause to our panellists who are great, and I hope you enjoyed this presentation.
01:00:10.310 --> 01:00:11.580 Thank you very much for coming.