Public Safety Split over How Best to Improve Communications in Crises
Internet Protocol networks are the way forward for emergency-services providers, said IPv6 Forum President Latif Ladid. Though some in public safety consider additional spectrum the answer, that would merely add access and connectivity without making it easier for services to talk to each other, he said in an interview Monday. But Jeppe Jepsen, Motorola’s director of international business relations and a board member of Europe’s Terrestrial Trunked Radio Association (TETRA), said wireless networks aren’t resilient or secure enough to deliver the required services.
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IPv6 networks will make it easier for first responders to link up on the fly, Ladid said. Fire trucks with Wi-Fi connection can use wireless phones or laptops to connect to each other if other communications are down, but the problem now is how to network with the police, army and other services, he said. Europe uses TETRA, which provides signaling but not a network, with each provider on its own frequency, he said. One solution is to use IPv6 to allow the services to connect with each other, he said.
The EU is working on a system to provide that interoperability, Ladid said. The European Commission said Thursday that EU-funded research has developed software called Workpad that allows emergency teams to coordinate and communicate with each other. Researchers are exploring how to link dozens of back-office databases over peer-to-peer networks to avoid duplication and increase response times, the EC said.
Workpad includes a central coordination and dispatch point where front-line responders can communicate through handheld devices such as personal digital assistants, the EC said. Information exchanged over the P2P network can help emergency workers track the locations of team members, get the names of people living in a collapsed apartment building, find maps and telephone records, and give rescue workers step-by-step instructions, it said. The research results were tested successfully during fires and earthquakes in southern Italy, it said. But Ladid said the missing link in the rollout of such networks is ISPs, which won’t adopt IPv6.
Public safety in Europe and the U.S. is pushing for more spectrum, to deploy data, video and other services beyond voice. IP networks can’t replace spectrum, Jepsen said. While VoIP is a good protocol on a fixed network without bandwidth concerns, “it is very bandwidth hungry and therefore not suitable in a wireless environment,” he said. Having a VoIP service on a network isn’t helpful without the coverage, resilience, availability or security needed, he said.
Supporters of adding spectrum are being guided by equipment makers that want to keep the current system going because the devices are proprietary and not interoperable, Ladid said. Some think that they need more bandwidth, but YouTube has shown that video can use the Internet, he said. But any move toward IP-based networks must be based on a switch to IPv6, which can connect TETRA systems and other networks, he said. Added spectrum aids connectivity, but it’s not necessary, he said.
A Luxembourg-run research project, called ubiquitous IP-centric government and enterprise next generation networks vision 2010 (U-2010), aims to improve emergency communication and information access using existing and future telecom infrastructures. The concept envisions an information technology structure based on IPv6 for a national crisis center that connects to police, fire and other agencies engaged in emergency response, said Carlo Simon, the head of the Luxembourg government’s communication center and the chairman of the National Committee on Telecommunications, both of which deal with disaster preparedness.
U-2010 won’t immediately move to IPv6, because the new protocol isn’t widespread enough, Simon said. Although the system may have to introduce terrestrial trunked radio for tactical voice and limited data services, “this specific technology has to work as a slave for the global, regional or national U-2010 solution,” he said.
Besides being future-proof, IPv6 was Luxembourg’s choice because of the “promise of simplified and redundant routing” on compatible network components including Internet with different DSL solutions, fiber, satellite links, GSM and 3G and 4G LTE mobile services, said Simon. Any non-IP, old technologies such as TETRA, voice GSM and the plain old telephony system will serve merely as “edge extensions,” he said.