Good afternoon. My name is Keith Hammonds.
I'm uh one of the directors of the North America Tetra Forum,
the NHTF. I'm here today to give you a brief update about
the current situation of the Tetra market in North America for the US and Canada.
But first, just a bit about our organisation.
The NATF, we are actually considered as a regional association uh related to the TCCA.
The TCCA, of course, being the global organisation of covering critical
communications technologies around the world including Tetra,
and the NATF is more focused specifically on the US and Canadian markets.
Uh, we're made up.
Our members include different, uh, Tetra manufacturers, other vendors of different
related equipment and services, consultants, and also some actual Tetra customers who own
and operate their own, their own networks.
So I'll start off first of all with a little bit of uh introduction uh on how Tetra was
introduced to the US and to Canada.
A bit, a bit of background.
As, as most of you probably know, Tetra has been in existence for well over 20 years now,
almost 25 years, and, uh, first of all, uh, in Europe for the European market,
for the public safety market as a mission-critical digital LMR technology.
That was then expanded into other Industrial sectors, utilities,
public transit, oil and gas, etc.
expanded beyond Europe's borders into Asia Pacific region,
uh, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and then finally,
ultimately, Into the North American market as well.
But whereas Tetra has been available around the world for the past 20 to 25 years and has in
fact become the number one digital LMR standard worldwide.
In the North American market, it's considered as a,
as a new technology. It's only been around in North America for more
or less about 10 years.
Um, a couple of reasons for that.
The first reason is that In the mid to late 1990s as Tetra was being developed as a
standard, what was occurring in the US at the same time was that the P25 standard was being
developed. Now they both have very similar uh
functionalities, and they were both developed for the same reason.
However, P25 and Tetra are actually two different technological solutions to the same
problem. So Chetra went on then to dominate the European
and include the including also the The global radio market,
whereas B25 came to dominate the American, the US, and the Canadian market.
Uh, so there was some resistance from, from, um, on the,
especially in the public safety side on having Tetra introduced into the US.
Um, but then there are also certain regulatory difficulties, uh,
in, in, in the early days as well.
Uh, the first of all, the first one being that the Tetra standard,
the technical standard did not comply with the SEC technical requirements for,
for being used, being used in North America.
Uh, basically what happened is Contrary to what is done in,
in Europe and in other parts of the world where adjacent channel power determines whether or
not uh a network can be installed in a certain location and operated without causing
interference to its uh to its neighbours. In the US they uh had earlier implemented uh
a set of frequency uh or modulation mass.
And so what the FCC required was then that the The waveform of the radio technology
technically had to fit within this, uh, within this mask when,
when viewed with the spectral analyzer.
And um as, as fate would have it, Tetrad just very slightly exceeded that
mask. So people said, oh well, it doesn't doesn't
complete the standard. Tetra's no good for the US can't be sold here.
So we had to overcome a technical barrier to introducing Tetra to the United States as well.
Uh, two paths were then taken. The first path led by the TCCA was to appeal to
the FCC and request a waiver.
Saying, hey, this is a European standard. It's the number one global technology for LMR.
It's used by the public safety uh organisations in every major European country.
Why can't it be in the used in the US? Please give us a waiver,
try it and see how you like it.
The second path was there were a couple of companies, Power Trunk and Zapura,
who decided to perform a small tweak to the modulation of the,
of the tech equipment, uh, to compress the waveform so that it would fit within the FCC
mask. So this was done and approved by the FCC,
so the FCC said, OK, yes, the tweaked form could be used within the uh US spectrum.
Um, it was, it remained, it still remained 100% compatible with the tetra functionality,
and the only difference basically was a 1 or 2 dB loss in the,
in the maximum output power.
And then on the other side, as I mentioned, the TCCA had requested a waiver and the FCC
then did partially on a temporary basis, grant a waiver to Etsy standard Tetra to be
tried and tested in the US as well.
So that that allowed us to get things started. It allowed us to start talking to customers and
and presenting touch of technology to them and trying to convince them that they needed to
take this on. The first context again.
Also were initiated through the TCCA.
Uh, a company in, in Canada, BC Hydro, which is the, uh,
electrical power generation and distribution company in,
in British Columbia. They took an interest in Tetra.
They said, hey, we've heard a lot about this, we're interested,
we want to, we want to set up a pilot.
And the TCCA facilitated then the, the meetings between uh the different Tetro manufacturers,
BC Hydro and Industry Canada, who is the Canadian regulator.
Uh, and set up the meetings and the discussions and allow that the pilot be implemented for,
for BC Hydro to test, to test out Tetra for the first time.
So the, the Tetra pilot was, it was set up, it was tested,
it was evaluated. uh BC Hydro compared the performance of Tetra
to other technologies such as P25, EAX, IDIN, etc.
and in the end, uh did issue an RFP.
Uh, which the only main requirement was that it was for a digital system.
So it didn't specify the technology, it only specified that the solution needed to be a 100%
digital solution, and in the end, they did, they did select Tetra.
They, they determined that Tetra 100% met their tenant requirements and also provided them with
the best cost-benefit relationship. So, Uh, as a result of that,
BC Hydro became the first, uh, Tetra customer in North America and in Canada.
This was very quickly followed up.
Uh, a few short months later in the US with New Jersey Transit,
who then became the first uh US customer of Tetra.
Uh, with that, then, uh, the ball began to roll a bit more.
Other utilities, other public transit agencies, other customers gradually began to,
uh, see that Tetra was finally, uh, had finally arrived in the US and in Canada and began to
implement their systems as well.
So I will discuss in a a bit about the evolution of the market and about some of the
uh. Major references that we have now obtained for
Tetra in the, in the North American region.
I mentioned um The mission of the NATF is to educate the market,
to educate potential touch customers about the technology and,
and to convince them of its benefits and why, and why they need to have it.
So, for most of you, I probably don't need to explain what you see on the slide here.
I mean, Tetra's been here in Europe for, like I said, 2025 years,
everyone's familiar with it, but When going to customers in North America,
we still have, actually have to tell them about this.
We have to tell them that Tetra stands for Tetra uh Teal trunked Radio,
that it's a, a, a European standard, a public safety standard,
mission critical grade standard, um.
And we have, we have to say that it's not common knowledge.
Uh, you, sometimes you almost think that in the US they,
they kind of like have blinders covering their eyes and they don't see anything occurring
outside their own borders.
So, again, even though Tetra is the number one LMR standard worldwide.
In North America, it's relatively unknown, hard to believe.
Um, but yeah, but then we tell them.
That it's a, it is a standard, it's a public safety standard.
It's a multi-vendor standard, uh, so it gives you more choice.
You're not tied into a single supplier.
Uh, the competition also brings down the prices, so it's more affordable.
Um And that they, and that the interoperability also is uh certified
by an independent test house.
So again, it's not a proprietary technology, it's open standard,
it's interoperable, it's compatible, uh, and there are several sources available.
We also have to explain to them the technology itself.
Uh, the, the first line there, uh, Tetra, it's a 4 slot CDMA technology operating in a 25
kierz channel. Believe it or not, in North America,
that was a big problem. The North American market in the,
in the last few years, they went through a migration or a transition of eliminating
practically all 25 kilohertz channels available in, in the,
in the, in the market and restricting licences to only 12.5 kilohertz channels.
So everything had to be 12.5 kilohertz compatible or 12.5 kilohertz uh compatible.
Fortunately, uh Tetra does comply with that, being a four slot TDMA.
In a 25 kilohertz channel, it's actually 6.25 kilohertz equivalent.
So, uh, it does, it does, uh, It does comply with the 12.5 kilohertz
compatibility. However, you still need the 25 kilohertz
channels. That means you have to get 2 12.5 kilohertz
channels, put those together, and obtain the 25 kilohertz channel in that manner.
Um, a lot of people did not know that this was possible.
However, if, uh, the customers in North America, if they go to the FCC and they request this,
it, it will and can be approved if the spectrum is available.
The data performance of Tetra, we have to, we have to talk about that as well.
Uh, up to 28 kilobits per second data transmission and uh again,
over 4 slots in the 25 kilohertz channel or divided into a single slot rate that's of
7.2 kilobits per second.
7.2 kilobits for single slot, 28 kilobits for a combined four slot is far superior to any other
uh data transmission rate that you'll find with other uh similar narrow band radio technologies.
So that's a big selling point.
Um, the availability of circuit and packet mode data, short,
uh, short data messaging, uh, the ALPO, codec, sorry.
That's a big selling point as well, not because of the codec itself,
but because uh because of what it offers. Um.
It offers, it results in very high quality, crystal clear audio.
As well as elimination of background noise, which is very important,
say for public transit agencies where you have a lot of traffic going on,
it's a high noise environment, airports where you may even have jet noise or a lot of noise
in the baggage handling, baggage handling area with all the conveyor belts,
uh, and other industrial and mining situations.
So that, that was a very, very important selling point for the technology as well,
very impressive. To, to compare the audio quality of Tetra to,
to other technologies such as P25.
And then Uh, in the end, After Tetra has been approved in Canada and the US,
it's available in the following bands, uh, 400 to 430 MHz,
that's for Canada, 450 to 470 megahertz in the United States,
700 MHz in the United States, and the 800 MHz band both in the US and in Canada.
The feature set, we talk about the feature set.
because it's a very rich.
Uh, and full feature set that Tetra offers. However, this first point in red,
simultaneous voice and data, that I would say probably is the most important,
it's the key selling point of Tetra, uh, overall.
Uh, some of you may remember, uh, Phil Kidner. He was one of the previous,
uh, CEOs of the TCCA.
I remember he used to always say, you buy a mission-critical Tetra voice network and you
get a data network for free.
And he was spot on on that.
Um You see, the other functionality, a lot of other technologies such as P25 and,
and even DMR we'll do most of that, but where Tetra excels is the data.
No other narrowband LMR technology has the same uh data capacity as Tetra.
And there's a lot you can, there's a lot that you can do with that.
You can do uh AVL tracking, you can do uh polling, telemetry,
scata. Database, uh, access, remote database access.
Even the transmission of of images.
Not, not, uh, not full video, but still images can be transmitted over Tetra at that data rate.
And in fact, for those of you familiar with the uh with the UK uh Tetra network,
they are actually doing that. The police services in the UK actually do
transmit uh images to their officers in the field.
So again, that's uh That's a major selling point because you don't necessarily have to
have one network for voice and one network for data.
You don't necessarily need broadband either.
Now, it depends where your data application is.
Uh, but as, as I say, if you don't need live streaming video or massive data applications,
uh, or, or, or internet access, Tetram, more than likely we'll,
will fit the bill for you.
Looking now then at uh the installed base worldwide.
apologise a bit about this graph. Uh, it's not the most,
it's not the latest data, it's about a year or so, a couple of years old,
but the trend that it depicts is, is, is still valid.
And what we see here is that as far as the Tetra installed base worldwide,
public safety is over 50%, probably 55%, almost reaching almost 60% of the installed base,
followed by utilities of 3% and uh.
And public transit also about 25 to 30%.
And with the exception of public safety, that more or less is reflected in the US market,
uh, as well. Of course, as I mentioned in the US and Canada,
the problem is is that we're competing against P25.
So for the public safety sector, um, Tetra is almost non-existent,
only a very small portion of uh public safety users at this moment.
And then looking at tetra by region worldwide, uh, Europe,
of course, it's, it's a European standard, so it's normal that Europe makes up about 50% of
the worldwide tetra market, uh, followed by Asia Pacific,
Middle Eastern Africa, and Latin America.
And then coming in last in North America, but again, the reason is because Tetra has only
been available in the US for about 10 years. So it's,
it's considered new territory as far as the tetra market is concerned.
But um, The growth is there, the growth is real.
Uh, at this point, North America makes up maybe 2 to 3% of the overall global tetra installed
base. Uh, so you can see, uh, the, the potential is
there. As far as actual systems, infrastructure
systems installed in North America.
Um, The list here shows a total of 35 networks. I may have missed one or two here somewhere,
but this, this, these numbers are basically good.
11 utilities, there are 11 utilities in Canada and the US that uh have rolled out their own
tetra networks and 7 public transit agencies.
Um, and those are the two major sectors in North America for,
for Tetra. Um, and looking again then at the utilities and
at public transit.
While for the utilities, you actually have more uh more users,
more individual networks and covering perhaps uh a larger geographic area.
It's actually the public transit sector that has the more users.
So fewer public safe, uh, fewer public transit networks, but many more users.
I would say at this moment there are well over 20,000 public safety users all combined uh in
the US and Canada.
Then after utilities and public transit, then you have half a dozen airports,
4 mining networks, 2 oil and gas, and other petrochemical uh process networks.
Um. Only one public safety network installed in
North America at this time, and that in fact is in Canada,
not the United States. This is for the city of uh Quebec in Canada for
the local police and emergency services.
There is one more.
Uh, public safety contract that was just recently awarded again for Canada,
but it's gonna be in probably another 1 to 2 years before that network is finally rolled out.
So, as you can see, Um, Tetra is making some progress in the public safety sector,
but only in Canada at this moment. In the US,
still a lot of resistance from the, from the P25 community.
Military networks.
4 that I know of, but it's uh the military sector is something that people usually don't
talk about, so there, there may even be more than this.
Reverences, major reverences.
Uh, BC Hydro, I mentioned before, they were the very first in,
in North America and in Canada, followed up quickly by Norgency Transit in the US,
but since then, in that roughly 10-year period since the first introduction of Tetra,
we have other major significant customers that have taken on Tetra as well.
This is not all inclusive. There are more references than what I show here,
but these I would say are the most important.
And if you look at some of the names, these are some very major uh players here.
Uh, you look at Uh, customers such as New Jersey Transit,
which is a statewide network.
New York City Transit, which is another major, major customer,
uh, airports such as Los Angeles Airport, JFK Airport in New York,
uh, Toronto Transit in Canada, Montreal Transit also in Canada,
uh, nuclear power plants for Ontario power generation.
These are all major Tetra customers, uh, in, in, in America,
and they're the type of customers who Uh, they're, they're very prestigious customers and
they're the type of customers that if they are not totally convinced and sold on a technology,
they're not gonna buy it. They, I mean, so the fact that they have chosen
Tetra for their own operations uh speaks very loudly in favour of the technology.
I'm just gonna go over quickly a few of these, um.
References. New to Transit, as I said, was the first in the
US. is a statewide network and also provides
coverage into New York City and to Philadelphia as well where they have connections for their
service. Uh, over 2000 buses, over 1200 trains,
about 4000 radios in total in operation since 2013.
Two major command and control centres in different parts of the state for uh redundancy
and of these 4000 tetra terminals, uh 100% of them include GPS.
And it's very interesting to note also that these 4000 radios are Uh,
fully pulled on the order of about every 30 to 40 seconds.
Uh, so that's very fast, that's very fast for pulling that,
that, uh, that number of radio terminals, and only Tetra can do this.
Um, no other, no other narrow band LA mobile radio technology is able to do this except for
Tetra. For any other technology to, to, to achieve
that, that uh speed of, of, of polling of updating the the AVL positions,
you, you would need then to go to some type of cellular or broadband uh solution instead.
New York City Transit.
Following up on the success of New Jersey, New York City decided to,
to select Tetra for their network as well.
Uh, work is currently in progress on finishing, on terminating the rollout of the network,
and this in fact is now the largest Tetra network in the US as far as the number of users,
not in the number of base stations, but as far as the number of users,
this is the largest tetra network in, in America.
Um. Over 6000 buses, another 1250 portable radios,
and the network itself is, is designed to support growth of up to 12,000 users.
This is operating in the 700 and 800 megahertz bands, and the 700 megahertz portion of the
network also supports interoperability with the P25 network in New York.
As far as utilities.
Of course, the first, the first reference in the US,
sorry, in the North America was a utility, it was BC Hydro.
But the largest utility network present now is in the state of Georgia.
It's a shared network.
This originated with the cooperation between Diverse Power and COB EMC,
which are two local utility companies in Georgia.
They both purchased independently their own touching networks at the same time,
but being neighbours, they came to the conclusion of,
hey, why don't we combine our infrastructures together, save some costs.
Uh, and, and then even, and then even offer to our other neighbours if they want to come and
join us as well, which they did.
So the network grew to the point now where it covers 2/3 of the state of Georgia.
Consists of 11 uh utility cooperatives and that's continuing to grow,
but it also includes other users as well, because what they have done is they have formed
a mobile network operator model where they are leasing their excess capacity to other users.
So the network, not only does it support their own day to day operations,
it's also generating money for them.
And the, some of the users include the, the Harris County Sheriff's Office.
Uh, other local police departments, local fire departments, uh,
an emergency dispatch centre.
And the interesting thing to note is these are public safety users.
So it's not a public safety network, it's a utility network,
but some of the users on this network are public safety,
uh, and, you know, and first responders, sheriff, police,
fire, medical services.
They are not using this network as their primary network.
Um, But they are operating their, their own day to day public safety radios and Tetra in the
vehicles side by side.
And then finally one last, uh, one last reference just uh to illustrate the ruggedness
of the Tetriology.
This is for uh Agnico Eagle Mines in Nunavut, Canada.
We're talking about the, the far north. This is in the Arctic.
So, uh, temperatures down to -40 degrees, uh, in the winter time,
only maybe 1 hour of sunlight a day.
And uh extreme cold, extreme winds, and blizzard conditions.
Um, And apart from the normal standard uh Tetra of voice and data services,
they even, uh, Agni Ele even developed their own applications.
And these, these applications were developed by themselves.
They were given the, the protocols, they were given the APIs and they,
and they themselves developed their own uh applications for blast notifications because
it's a mine, so there are explosions. They use Tetra on this application for advising
that there's going to be a detonation.
Uh, stench gas release, Scada equipment monitoring, and personnel equipment tracking is
actually very important to them, because again, Very cold,
harsh weather, blizzard conditions, 66 months of darkness every uh every year.
Um, they're only allowed to be outdoors 20 minutes at a time.
So, uh, the personnel tracking is an essential part of their daily operations and ensuring a
method of ensuring the safety of their, of their personnel.
So just to just to conclude.
Um Considering the North American market, there are several market sectors,
this is true worldwide, not just public safety, uh, that require mission critical grade
communications for their operations, both voice and for data.
And then compared to other technologies, Tetra offers um many unique features,
including superior narrow band data performance, uh, and at a better uh price benefit ratio
than uh than compared to other technologies.
Uh, such as P25 that are presently in use.
So, uh, North America then.
It's, again, it's the newest and least developed market as far as Tetra goes and we're
facing stiff competition against other technologies, specifically P25,
but it's not impossible to overcome uh these customers' doubts.
Uh, regarding Tetra, once you convince them of the technical super,
superiority of the Tetris technology and of its uh economic value.
So again, customer education is the key.
Uh, and that's what the North American Tetra Forum is here.
We're here to educate the market, uh, about Tetra, its benefits and to promote the,
the, um, technology in general for the benefits of all manufacturers and,
and service providers.
So if you want more information about the NATF, All right,
uh, you can see our website at tetra-NA.org or drop us an email at info again at
info@tetra-NA.org or directly to myself or one of the other directors of the
organisation. So Thank you very much for your attention.
Um, now we can open the floor for questions if there are any.
Yes. You
are focusing mostly on infrastructure parts.
What about the radios?
P25 radios are completely different than tetra radios.
What is the customer feedback about the differences?
Comparing the P25 and the Tetra radio terminals.
Um The general features are, are very similar. Again, what I mentioned,
the main difference between Tetra and P25 is the data capability.
Both P25 and Tetra are top grade, mission critical grade voice communication systems,
no doubt about it. However, uh, P25 data performance is not on par
as what you get with Tetra.
There's also a price difference.
Uh, if you look at the, the P25 market in the US, a typical,
uh, P25 handheld radio.
The price could range somewhere between $3000 to $5000 depending on the model and the
features that are included.
But compared to Tetra, you can get a similar featured Tetra ratio for $1000.
So, while infrastructure costs may, may more or less may be the same,
there's a big difference on the terminal cost.
Yeah, what about size of the radio and size of the radios.
They are definitely different.
No, I wouldn't say that they're completely different.
Um, P25 radios tend to be maybe a little bit larger, more rugged,
although that's not to say that touch of radios are not rugged.
Um, there are different models of Tetra radios available as well.
So some are intend physically intended for public safety,
others not so much.
So it depends. Uh, it depends what you're looking for.
Thank you very much. Mhm.
Anyone else?
If not, then thank you very much for your time and your attention.
Good day.