Network 2020: Mission Critical Communications

Many situations arise where human life and other values for society are at risk and where timely and reliable communications between first responders is essential to avoid or at least mitigate damage: we refer to this type of exchange of information as critical communications.

The most typical example of critical communications use is in the so called “blue lights” agencies (police, ambulance fire brigade), however mission critical communications are also applicable to many other sectors of society and industries.

This whitepaper discusses how the capabilities of LTE networks and especially how broadcasting functionality can be leveraged not only to provide
mission critical communications at system parity with existing solutions, but to enrich them by allowing users to exchange multimedia content in addition to voice and enjoy access to mobile broadband.

Besides group communications, this paper also proposes to consider exploiting the LTE-Broadcast capabilities for enhancing the delivery of public warnings. As a testament of the maturity of the technology, a case study of deployment of a mission critical communications system in Telstra’s mobile network is discussed.