Austria-based critical communications provider Frequentis has taken a slice of Drei Austria’s national public 5G network in its home country to develop and test applications for public safety and emergency response control centres. The setup has also seen Drei Austria, in combination with parent CK Hutchison’s global enterprise services division Three Group Solutions, deploy a dedicated private core network at Frequentis’ headquarters in Vienna.
Frequentis develops communication systems for global customers running control centres orchestrating critical safety operations for transport and safety infrastructure, such as civil and military air traffic control, air defence, emergency services, port authorities, and railways. It has a share of about 30 percent of the air traffic control market, and a prominent position in most other safety critical sectors. .
Its custom public and private 5G architecture with Drei Austria combines a slice of the public standalone 5G (5G SA) network in Austria for outdoor coverage and a dedicated private 5G core network, plus indoor radio cells, at its Vienna offices in order to support local data transmission “regardless of the load on the public network”, said a press statement from Three Group Solutions. The setup is described as a “development environment”.
A statement explained: “The 5G core network ensures all Frequentis data remains within the company headquarters and meets the strictest data security requirements. This provides ideal conditions to further develop MissionX safety-critical communication solutions, and to use them for demonstration purposes and tests.” MissionX appears to be the go-to-market brand for Frequentis’ mission-critical broadband products.
It added: “The combination of mission critical push-to-talk (MCPTT) and 5G network slicing provides emergency and rescue services with a more robust, secure, and efficient communications infrastructure that helps improve responsiveness and effectiveness in critical situations.”
Frequentis is leading a group of 13 firms from five countries in one of three consortiums competing in the BroadWay Initiative to establish a pan-European comms system to help with international and inter-domain responses to natural catastrophes, criminal incidents, and related emergency situations. A statement said: “When customers include air traffic management, police, fire brigade and rescue services, optimal connectivity is paramount for public safety.”
Charlotte Rösener, head of mission critical services at Frequentis, said “The use of a 5G campus network with network slicing on the public 5G network for [a[ test platform is an important prerequisite for the further development of safety-critical applications within the framework of MissionX and gives us the opportunity to validate the behaviour of our applications under operational conditions. Thanks to this project, we now have the opportunity to carry out tests under specific network behaviour.”
Matthias Baldermann, chief technical officer at Drei Austria, said: “We are the first, and so far the only, option in Austria [with] a nationwide 5G SA network. It is here, in the sector with the most critical requirements, that our… technology reveals its full potential with special network slices for secured capacities, minimum latency, and maximum data security. With our expertise and technology, we want to enable Frequentis [by] providing the best conditions for their future innovations.”
Graham Wilde, head of 5G business development at Three Group Solutions, said: “Working closely with our colleagues at Drei, we have jointly put together a really flexible solution for Frequentis, leveraging on Drei’s 5G standalone capabilities. We’re very proud to play our small part in helping Frequentis bring the next generation of first responder communications solutions to life.”
