 - TETRA (Terrestrial Trunked Radio) is a set of standards developed by
the European Telecommunications Standardisation Institute (ETSI) that describes a common mobile radio communications infrastructure
throughout Europe. This infrastructure is targeted primarily at the mobile
radio needs of public safety groups (such as police and fire departments), utility companies, and other enterprises that provide voice and data communications services.
All of these groups have been high-end users of private/professional
mobile radio (PMR) or public access mobile radio (PAMR) technology. This
is especially true in the areas of law enforcement and public safety, where
fast and accurate field communications to and from a central office or
dispatcher are often critical. TETRA is a standard solution for groups that use both PMR and PAMR.
In recent years, when European disasters have struck, emergency response
teams from several European nations had a difficult time communicating
with each other, due in part to the lack of standardization in their mobile
radio equipment. The TETRA standards evolved to answer this communication
challenge as well as others faced or anticipated by the European Commission
(EC) in its efforts to unify European countries.
Based on digital, trunked radio technology, TETRA is believed to be
the next-generation architecture and standard for current, analog PMR and
PAMR markets. TETRA actually takes its features from several different
technological areas:? mobile radio, digital cellular telephone, paging, and
wireless data.
TETRA relies on digital trunking. TETRA-based products come with built-in
encryption features to ensure the privacy and confidentiality of sensitive data/voice communications. These products are also designed with the ability to transfer data at faster rates than seen before in mobile communications.
TETRA, which originally stood for Trans-European Trunked Radio, was
renamed Terrestrial Trunked Radio after ETSI found widespread interest
in the TETRA standards beyond Europe's geographic borders. ETSI has had
a successful history of developing communications standards that later
become accepted industry-wide, such as the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSMC) standard.
The TETRA Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was created in December
1994 as a forum to represent the needs of various members of the mobile
communications industry (including product manufacturers, telecommunications
agencies, end users of mobile devices). Ole M. Lauridsen, chairman of the TETRA MoU, anticipates that the introduction of TETRA across Europe will not only standardize and improve mobile radio communications for current PMR/PAMR users, but it will also significantly decrease the cost of equipment and terminals by as much as 30-40% over analog equipment currently on the market.
Efforts are currently underway to introduce TETRA standards in other
parts of the world, including Denmark, China and the United States. (In
the United States, another standard called APCO 25 is currently in use
by public safety agencies. TETRA standards are currently being considered
along with other standards for inclusion in a later phase of the APCO 25
Project.)
Field tests and trials of TETRA are still on-going by ETSI and its host
of manufacturers and testers. The UK's Dolphin Telecommunications has reported
that it plans to release its own ExpressNet by the summer of 2000. ExpressNet
is purported to be the first commercial development of a TETRA-based system
in Europe, which integrates both data and voice mobile communications into
a single network. It is planned for initial deployment throughout the UK,
France, and Germany.
| CONTRIBUTORS: |
Mike Geldart |
| LAST UPDATED: |
11 Apr 2003
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