Comms Connect announces virtual conference series in November

The new Comms Connect Virtual Conference Series is set to deliver a high-quality program of speaker sessions.

Although the physical Comms Connect Melbourne 2020 event has had to be cancelled due to COVID-19, the new Comms Connect Virtual Conference Series is set to deliver a high-quality program of speakers in November.

Each Thursday in November between 10:00 am and midday, a series of online presentations from local and international experts will be held, followed by an interactive Q+A panel session. The sessions will be chaired by Chris Stevens, a highly respected public safety communications expert and Managing Director of CartGIS.

The Comms Connect Virtual Conference Series will be widely marketed across Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, PNG and South-East Asia — spreading the Comms Connect brand to a broader audience than ever before.

Detailed information will become available on the Comms Connect website (www.comms-connect.com.au) in the coming weeks, but here’s a preview of what to expect.

Thursday, 5 November: Cybersecurity and our industry. Cybersecurity threats are a continually evolving risk management issue for the critical communications industry. And as we become more digitised and connected through the internet and integrated topologies, networks will only become more exposed to cybersecurity threats. As network designers, engineers, integrators and managers, we need to have confidence in the ability of our digital infrastructure to stand up to cybersecurity threats. Is the critical communications sector lagging behind others in this regard?

Thursday, 12 November: Private LTE — ensuring coverage, capacity and control, from design to implementation. Organisations that can generate the greatest benefit from private LTE have the kind of use cases that are not readily supported by public networks. This session will cover the primary reasons to deploy private networks (coverage, capacity and control), how to need to ensure infrastructure and equipment is cost-effective, fast to deploy and simple to operate, and how a baseline architecture and design for private LTE is the building block of the process.

Thursday, 19 November: Location-based services — practical integration tips. With the rapid development of digital communication networks, location-based services represent a novel challenge both conceptually and technically. Most location-based service applications are part of everyday life, running across LTE (public and private), LMR, IoT and Wi-Fi networks. But providing end users with added value on top of mere location information is a complex task.

Given the variety of possible applications, the basic requirements of location-based services are numerous. To ensure these services maintain relevance in a big data ecosystem it is imperative that they be integrated into operational and analytical systems.

Thursday, 26 November: Next-generation land mobile radio systems — how does the industry keep radio relevant? Although global LMR system sales are expected to exhibit strong growth to 2025, how can the traditional comms industry remain relevant into the future? What opportunities exist for private and public safety LMR users and what strategies are being deployed by the sector to ensure relevance remains?

The Comms Connect team has also put together the following series of online masterclasses and courses covering a variety of topics — full details can be found at www.comms-connect.com.au:

Critical Conversations for technical people (24–27 November: four, 3-hour sessions), presented by Trevor Manning (Managing Director of TMC Global), will provide a practical framework to have honest conversations while protecting relationships. Suitable for technical managers, specialist engineers and project managers.

Presented by Chris Stevens, the Radio Communications DC Power Fundamentals course (20–27 October: three, 2-hour sessions) is for those new to the industry and will cover AC/DC radio power systems and procedures for safe inspection and testing.

The Radio Communications 101 course (2–14 December: five, 2-hour sessions), also presented by Chris Stevens, will introduce radio principles, including an overview of propagation and antennas.

Managing technical teams (8–12 February: five, 3-hour sessions) will be packed with practical tips and real-world examples. Presented by Trevor Manning, this course is ideal for engineers who have been promoted into management.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Eakrin