Comms Connect Melbourne 2016 preview

Don’t miss this world-class line-up of speakers, workshops and exhibitors.

The international Comms Connect conference and exhibition is on again in Melbourne, from 22 to 24 November 2016. Now in its 10th year, it is expected to draw more than 1400 attendees from a broad range of industry sectors, including utilities, public safety, government (local, state and federal), transport, mining, oil and gas, security, defence, IT, backhaul and telemetry, and the wider commercial environment.

The conference will feature individual presentations, panel sessions, keynotes and workshops covering a myriad of topics of interest to everyone in the critical communications field: latest technologies, regulation and government policy, case studies, security, the Internet of Things and many more.

This year, all exhibits and presentations will be in the same place — the Exhibition Halls at Melbourne’s Convention and Exhibition Centre. And with 90+ exhibitors, 80+ speakers and delegates from 20 countries taking part, Melbourne will be the place to be in November.

Training workshops

The event will begin with a series of industry workshops on Tuesday, 22 November, the day before the main conference program commences. This year there will be eight workshops (last year there were six), and the topics and presenters/moderators will be:

• Voice and data applications over IP — presented by Daniel Oliphant, Product Manager, Zetron Australasia
• 400 MHz band changes and achieving compliance: the things you need to know — presented by representatives of ARCIA and the ACMA
• Implementation of location services within a radio dispatch environment — presented by Kor Snyman, Engineering Manager, Omnitronics
• Fleet management cradle to grave utilising OTAP — presented by Andrew Smith, Engineering Solutions Manager, Tait Communications
• Mission-critical communications redundancy: the future looks bright — presented by Ryan Lovett, Australian and New Zealand College of Paramedicine, and Inspector (Ret.) Lance Valcour O.O.M.
• Integrated operations: beyond IT/OT convergence — presented by Stuart Zerbe, Director, Marketing & Strategy, Harris
• Critical communications: where to from here — presented by members of the Australasian TETRA + Critical Communications Forum and the International TETRA and Critical Communications Forum
• Building a private LMR network from the ground up: an independent workshop — presented by Chris Stevens, Lifesaving Communications Advisor,  Surf Life Saving Australia

These workshops tend to fill up quickly, so make sure you get your registration in as soon as possible. And keep checking the Comms Connect website (comms-connect.com.au) for information on additional presenters and panellists as it comes to hand.

Conference program

The organisers always secure very high-profile keynote speakers to begin the first day of the event, and this year will be no exception.

First up will be Dr Kevin Vinsen of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research in Perth. Dr Vinsen is heavily involved in the development of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), a pioneering radio telescope system being built in remote Western Australia and southern Africa.

The SKA will incorporate groundbreaking Australian radio technology and produce copious amounts of data that will require supercomputers to process. In this presentation, Dr Vinsen — who previously spent almost 10 years as chief software engineer for leading defence contractor Thales — will demonstrate how terrestrial communications and cutting-edge radioastronomy share so many things in common… the latest radio and electronics technology, remote operations in harsh environments, high-speed data links, big data analysis, spectrum protection and more.

He will be followed by Bill Shrier, Senior Advisor to the US First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet), who will give a presentation on the progress being made towards implementing the world’s largest and most complex public safety mobile broadband (PSMB) communications network. Considering that Australia will one day soon move towards having a PSMB network of its own, this will be an invaluable opportunity for delegates to hear directly from one of the leading experts involved in the FirstNet project.

Following the keynotes, the conference will split into three streams — Public Safety & Emergency Management, Industry and Technology — with two dozen presentations spread over the remainder of the first day. There are too many speakers to list them all here (the full range can be seen on the Comms Connect website), but here is selection that covers a range of topics:

• From pre-hospital to out of hospital, the past, present and future of mission-critical communications (Ryan Lovett, Zone Manager, Lead Operational Digital Engagement Strategy, NSW Ambulance)
• Evolving DMR standards deliver new customer benefits (John Graham, DMR Association Marketing Working Group Chairman, Tait Communications)
• Cyber warfare in the utilities — the art of protecting critical infrastructure (Dr Suresh Hungenahally, CISO and Cyber Security Lead, CommTel Network Solutions)
• 2017 and beyond: what do customers want from a communications solution? (Daniel Leppos, Channel Manager, Motorola Solutions)
• Tackling interference issues in the field with real-time spectrum analysis (Steve Karandais, General Manager, Keysight Technologies)
• Digitising policing services to the community (Inspector Trevor Gould, Business Manager, Policelink, Queensland Police Service)
• Spectrum for private LTE networks — picking over the bones (Andrew May, Licensing Manager, Spectrum Engineering Australia)
• Electrical equipment for hazardous areas (EEHA) — just what is ‘intrinsically safe’? (Ian Miller, Executive Officer, ARCIA)
• Delivering electronics and communication training using a ‘Blended Model’ approach (Dr Kenneth Meyer, Head Teacher: Systems Engineering Design, TAFE Riverina)

ARCIA Gala Dinner and awards ceremony

All attendees are encouraged to register for the Annual Gala Dinner of the Australian Radio Communications Industry Association (ARCIA), which will be held on the evening of Wednesday, 23 November. This festive occasion will include presentation of the national industry awards.

The dinner is always a fun and enjoyable event… a chance to let your hair down after a busy first day at the conference/exhibition, and to network with colleagues in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Full registration details are available on the ARCIA website (www.arcia.org.au).

Conference, day two

The second day will begin with a special keynote address from Station Officer Graham Tait — Systems Officer, Operational Communications, Fire & Rescue NSW — who will give delegates a first-hand view into what happens when disasters occur and emergency responders converge to help the trapped and injured.

Next up will be a keynote presentation from Crispin Blackall, Director, Global Enterprise Product Engineering at Telstra, who will speak of how Telstra’s network evolution from high-speed LTE to LANES and 5G is bringing a wealth of new ways to connect and collaborate.  From mission-critical, highly resilient solutions to high-coverage, low-powered sensor networks for IoT, technological change is driving numerous opportunities, from automation to public safety.

This will be followed by another 20 presentations on a wide variety of subjects — here are just a few:

• Big data: gearing up from what’s next in digital policing and investigation (John Rennie, General Manager, NICE)
• Cyber resilience — addressing the changing communications landscape of wide area industrial communications (Bradley Yager, Solutions Manager, and Peter Clissold, Schneider Electric)
• Defending critical communications network infrastructure against cyber-attacks (Hansen Chan, Product Marketing Manager, Nokia)
• Building carrier-class FWB networks to support ITS applications — a regional Australia focus (Roy Wittert, Regional Sales Director, Cambium Networks)
• Improving the visibility and reliability of bus services within the public transport sector using digital two-way radio (Glen Norris, National Business Development Manager, The Orion Network; Robert Glover, Solutions Specialist, Mastercom; and Nicholas Yap, General Manager, ComfortDelGro Cabcharge)

Comms Connect will conclude on the Thursday afternoon with a not-to-be-missed panel session of interest to everyone in the Australian critical communications sector — ‘Public safety mobile broadband — the way forward for critical communications in Australia’. This session will bring together experts to discuss progress with achieving PSMB in Australia, an issue that has been at the forefront of deliberations for a number of years.

Panel members and delegates will discuss, in a facilitated session, various options and points of view on how to develop a national strategy to move PSMB forward. This discussion will be invaluable to agencies as they begin to prepare the operational guidelines and inter-relationships between agencies and jurisdictions that will be needed for this critical communications development.

So there you have it — a very impressive line-up of local and international experts, exhibitors and activities for Comms Connect’s 10th year. Make sure you take advantage of this once-per-year opportunity to take part in Australasia’s leading critical communications conference and exhibition, an opportunity to mingle with a who’s who of experts from industry, government and academia.

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Where: Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre

When: 22 November (preconference workshops), 23–24 November (conference and exhibition)

Web: comms-connect.com.au

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Speakers: 80+

Exhibitors: 90+

Training workshops: 8

Conference streams: Public Safety & Emergency Management, Industry and Technology