The Market Positioning for TETRA

Devdarsh Jain, Head of Marketing, Artevea Digital Limited

The developments in telecom, IP, computing and semiconductors are driving forward the convergence of radio communication in the 21st century. TETRA, within a decade of existence, has now established itself as the clear technology of choice for PMR Networks worldwide. This article considers TETRA today and tomorrow - the current and potential competing technologies, and their respective futures.

TETRA vs APCO 25

TETRA and APCO 25 have been two standards in radio communication which have now existed for over a decade. While they have competed against in each other in a few common market segments, they are different technologies at core.

• APCO 25 standard has evolved from joint project of U.S. users (APCO, NASTD), government and industry (TIA) organisations, during which time it has been standardized as an open standard. In comparison, TETRA has been developed as an open standard since its inception with a global approach for worldwide acceptance.
• APCO 25 is a Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) based voice centric technology with wide rural coverage and focus on public safety. TETRA has been developed as a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) based Voice + Data standard to meet the needs of various user groups such as shared multi agency public safety systems (PSS) and smaller private networks.
• APCO25 is traditionally assumed to be suitable for large cells and low density users as it becomes technically and commercially challenging to provide capacities for large number of subscribers over a small area. Alternatively, TETRA is designed to handle higher capacities at lower cost with greater spectrum efficient solution.
• APCO 25 has no visible future roadmap, while the TETRA Association and ETSI are already actively involved in developing TETRA 2.

This has led to differentiated markets for each of the standards.

• APCO 25 has had maximum markets in the US Public Safety market with some private contracts in Latin America and Asia Pacific.
• However, TETRA has continued successfully to evolve as the technology of choice in Europe, Middle East and Asia with rapidly growing footprint in Africa and Latin America. TETRA also targets vertical segments such as Public Safety, Transportation, Utilities and Infrastructure management

Latterly, we are seeing the evolution of standards such as WIMAX and DMR

• WIMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) 802.16e is a Mobile Broadband standard which has been backed by the telecom industry as the standard to drive the next wave of telecom revolution. WIMAX 802.16e (Mobile) theoretically promises to deliver data speeds up to 100 Mbps with (Non Line of Sight) NLOS coverage of up to 50 miles. Various manufacturers have claimed to be in beta testing phase to establish the true capabilities and performance of the standard. Handset manufacturers have committed to WIMAX phones by 2007-2008. However, how key issues of instant PTT group and individual calls, supplementary services, reliability and security will be solved which are the cornerstones of TETRA is yet to be determined.
• Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) is another initiative of ETSI to produce an open standard of radio communication for business and general commercial users. DMR has provisioned 3 tiers for product development of which Tier 3 applies for Trunked solutions in licensed VHF and UHF frequency bands.

Initially, there was a lot of interest in a standard that sits below TETRA in market positioning for non -mission critical users, but with TETRA infrastructure and handsets costs decreasing, coupled with the increasing popularity of GSM and CDMA, the big debate is whether there is a big enough market for manufacturers to commit to DMR.

Future TETRA v other technologies

TETRA is proposing a well defined migration path to the next generation public safety solutions through TETRA 2. TETRA 2 aims to provide an upgrade strategy for currently deployed TETRA 1 networks. TETRA 2 seems to be a strong contender for next generation public safety networks before true convergence of Cellular and PMR technologies to a last mile broadband standard which offers security, resilience and quality of service.