GCF Highlights Importance of Interoperability at TCCA’s Critical Communications World 2019

Global Certification Forum (GCF) will be participating in TCCA’s Critical Communications World 2019 event, 18th – 20th June in Kuala Lumpur.

Together with TCCA (The Critical Communications Association), a membership organisation which represents all standard mobile critical communications technologies and complementary applications, GCF will highlight progress made to date since the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with TCCA last year that pledged to advance developments in areas related to 3GPP mission critical services.

GCF’s presence at the show and partnership with TCCA will impart to manufacturers, network operators and service providers involved in mission critical communications, the importance of using GCF certified devices for quality and interoperability whilst benefitting from lower test costs and faster time to market.

As well as exhibiting at the show, GCF will provide insight into mission critical communications certification as part of the wider LTE and 5G programme with a presentation at the conference session on 20th June at 2:35pm, stream 2 entitled: “Enable reliable mission critical communications with LTE and 5G devices.”

GCF certified products have been rigorously assessed for conformance to industry standards, not just for the core radio layers (2G, 3G, 4G and 5G) but for calls, messaging and internet access. For this important sector, where in an emergency situation it is imperative that communications do not fail, the underlying core technologies must be evaluated as well as the mission critical applications.

TCCA leads the global development and promotion of standardised critical communications solutions and works closely with standards development organisations, including ETSI and 3GPP. Since collaborating with TCCA, GCF has introduced a new member category “Mission Critical Communications Operator” to its programme to allow mission critical operators to gain access to information on GCF certified products and to contribute to the ongoing development of the scope of GCF certification.

“The quality and service reliability advantages gained from ensuring interoperability of mobile devices is well documented, with data proving that our members’ products have up to 20% fewer dropped calls than non-certified products,” said Lars Nielsen, General Manager GCF. “To date, there has not been a lot of awareness of the benefits of certification in this vital sector, so by attending the show with TCCA we want to give attendees a chance to discuss with both organisations how we can help to improve service to their customers and lower costs. With mission critical devices, certification against 3GPP standards is paramount and we have now made this easily accessible.”

“At TCCA we are continually evolving our ecosystem to benefit all our stakeholders, doing everything we can to ensure that critical communications operate efficiently across the world,” said Tony Gray, Chief Executive at TCCA. “With GCF we have been steadily developing a dedicated programme for broadband device certification with the goal of dramatically improving the deployment of critical communications broadband devices now and in the future.”

Public Safety Agencies, (PSAs) are increasingly using public carrier networks for the provision of mission critical services and this trend is creating pressure to consolidate all required functionality for mission critical voice and data communications, as well as the specific capabilities of two-way radio devices into a single handset.

In recognition of this, 3GPP, the standardization body governing world-wide cellular networks, has been developing new specifications to support mission critical communications. Beginning with Release 13, Mission Critical Push to Talk (MCPTT) specifications covered Group Communication System Enablers (GCSE) and Proximity-based Services (ProSe), based on the 3GPP Evolved Packet System (EPS). Further Mission Critical functionality, including MC Data and MC video is being developed in later 3GPP Releases.

The MCPTT community has specific requirements and emergency services network operators, device suppliers, and the test industry are encouraged to get involved with GCF to certify products and use GCF certified products in their networks as part of a broader strategy to build reliable, high-quality services for critical communications users.