Stating the Case for Cost

Steve Barber, Market Development Manager for Sepura

The majority of TETRA deployments to date are for governments. Can the cost of public safety be measured in terms of ROI?

The deployment of a public safety radio network is controlled through a need to get best value for money while fulfilling the operational requirements of that public safety organisation. Typically a government will study different technologies and solutions available in the market and identify which features best meet their requirements, from a management, regulatory, operational and financial point of view.

As part of the procurement process tendering is usually technology independent so that each organisation can evaluate the proposed solutions not the technology. Something that always scores very highly in this process is the health and safety of the users and the public in general. The TETRA industry recognised this at an early stage and introduced innovative solutions focusing on health and safety, for example, ranging from secure, reliable and covert communications, to highly accurate person location systems.

Whilst TETRA offers these features and public safety users worldwide benefit from them the industry still has to recognise that governments require value for money. For some governments ROI is a critical issue and operational efficiency must be proven such that the business case for TETRA is clear.

To support this Business Case the management and efficiency of the network and spectrum, plus the cost to manage, service and support terminals are key strengths in the TETRA offering. This flexibility and commitment from the TETRA community positions TETRA technology at the forefront of any public safety communications.

As testament to this, governments that invest in TETRA communications have invested in a secure technology that is focused on meeting their needs now and in the future.

TETRA has a committed roadmap, fusing mission critical secure voice and data communications, with the demand for higher speed data.

As the TETRA market is now growing fast, all users old and new will benefit from the competitive situation. Competition is the catalyst to better, more innovative solutions demanded by public safety users worldwide.

In the current climate where the world is at war with terrorists, the decision to use the most advanced and secure radio system for homeland security, is not a matter of ROI but protection of life.

TETRA is positioned as being the only technology that can truly deliver immediate and secure communications for emergency services. How are the costs agreed/established if there is effectively no competitive pricing?

It is totally untrue to say that there is no competitive pricing in TETRA.

TETRA not only has to compete against other traditional PMR radio technologies (standardised and proprietary) but also against adaptations from the cellular world. The fact that TETRA stands strong in its own right and is now becoming the technology of choice proves just how well it meets the demands of public safety users worldwide.

Within the TETRA market there is a large choice of suppliers of networks, terminals and applications, all providing solutions for the vast array of operational requirements across the market.

Even though the TETRA market is rapidly expanding throughout the world the competition for contracts has never been fiercer, resulting in a market where product and service prices are falling as variety of solutions increases.

An equally important consideration is the reducing cost of TETRA ownership. Software is being developed to facilitate and semi-automate fleet mapping, terminal programming and support, plus asset management etc.

How does the cost of TETRA compare with other technologies in the non-public safety market - transport, utilities etc?

For many applications TETRA compares very favourably with other technologies, especially in terms of operational efficiencies.

Many of the features developed in TETRA for public safety users also have a place in other markets like transport or utilities. For example one of the strengths of TETRA is transferring data to another terminal when no network coverage exists using the DMO service.

An example of a transport application is the support of dynamic "hurry" signals for a bus, in this case if a bus is running late and needs traffic signals to change so that it can catch up then it could signal in DMO to the traffic lights. In a society that now penalises transport operators for not meeting timetables this is a useful tool.

In the utilities sector, an example is the remote reading and alarming of power substations using TETRA. Currently many utilities use GSM technology and incur a monthly charge, with TETRA they can manage and control their own readings with near instantaneous alarm reporting. The two major benefits of this to the utility company are that there is no ongoing and potentially unpredictable monthly cost, plus they know the grade of service that will be achieved with TETRA. How many times have cellular networks failed when there is an emergency?

Is the technology future-proof enough to justify a high level of investment now, bearing in mind it is over ten years old?

Only in the last five years has there been volume deployment of TETRA and only in the last year have we seen the conclusion of the international debate regarding which digital PMR technology will become dominant for public safety users worldwide. This was when Germany and a number of other countries selected TETRA. It would be fair to say that the best is yet to come with market forecasts showing a growing take-up of TETRA for at least the next ten years. To date TETRA has been exploited mostly for its secure voice communications capabilities. Now its use for mixed voice and data communications is taking off.

TETRA suppliers are all constantly developing new features to make their products more attractive to users and more importantly the introduction of high speed data in 2-3 years time will create an even bigger need for the technology and solutions around it.

Solutions will be based upon end user operational requirements and only TETRA can provide the transport mechanism to deliver the secure voice and data services demanded of customers. Other technologies may provide the data bandwidth but none offer the same level of security or the mission critical voice and data performance of a TETRA solution.