Comms Connect NZ 2024: conference highlights

The Southern Hemisphere’s premier critical communications event, Comms Connect, has once again returned to New Zealand, bringing hundreds of curious comms users to Te Pae Christchurch Convention Centre from 26–27 June.

Over 550 visitors attended over the course of the event, which saw 45 exhibitors and sponsors showcase their wares on the expo floor while 34 expert speakers shared their insights across two conference streams.

“The expo floor was a hive of activity and the main plenary conference room was packed on both mornings, featuring strong keynote speakers and panel sessions,” said Comms Connect Events Director Geoff Hird. “We could not have been happier with the turnout and the positive energy that buzzed around the fantastic Te Pae venue throughout the event.”

The importance of interoperability

A key theme of the event was the importance of interoperability — the ability for different radio systems to talk to each other. The Director of the Project 25 Technology Interest Group, Stephen Nichols, said the benefit of this 34-year-old suite of standards — which are constantly being updated with new capabilities — is that they create seamless interoperability between different manufacturers of land mobile radio (LMR) devices, enabling different public safety agencies to securely and confidently communicate and share data.

Sadly, when two agencies don’t share the same standards or frequency bands, the results can be fatal. This was noted by Dr Paul Elmes, Managing Director APAC at Tait Communications, who recounted the 2021 drowning of a teenage girl at Auckland’s Karioitahi Beach when the police encountered difficulty contacting the local surf club. Meanwhile, here in Australia, there are cases going back as far as Cyclone Tracy where lack of interoperability has caused problems during natural disasters, with last year’s Public Safety Mobile Broadband Strategic Review finding that existing LMR services provide “limited interoperability”. The good news, Elmes said, is that Tait has developed its own multi-band, multi-protocol radios that can switch between P25 and digital mobile radio (DMR) just by changing the channel — so users can have access to both without carrying more than one device.

Surf Life Saving NSW (SLSNSW) meanwhile has its own interoperability solution, as detailed by the organisation’s Communications Systems Manager, Andrew Ugarte. He noted that SLSNSW has full search-and-rescue (SAR) interoperability with all agencies in part thanks to its Omnitronics omnicore radio management system, which lets users access P25, analog and DMR all from the same console. Furthermore, the organisation is currently collaborating with the state government to integrate its system into the NSW Public Safety Network (PSN), providing coverage of the coastline that the PSN is otherwise lacking. SLSNSW can even move onto the PSN when working away from the coast, such as when assisting with flood rescue elsewhere in the state.

Natural disaster preparedness

In a ‘sequel’ to his presentation last year, Michael Healy from Christchurch City Council detailed how the council’s new early fire detection network, installed following the 2017 Port Hills fires, fared during the 2024 fire. Five solar-powered, automated fire detection units, which use 4G to communicate early signs of fire back to the command centre and so serve as a 21st-century version of an old-fashioned fire tower, were put in place at Christchurch Adventure Park. Meanwhile, co-presenter Wayne Hamilton from Fire and Emergency New Zealand noted that firefighters prevented fires from reigniting by using drones to identify ‘hot spots’ — a task that would have previously required handheld thermal cameras.

Healy said the council has since added more fire detection units to cover an even larger area of Christchurch Adventure Park, and will consider installation in other areas which may become more prone to wildfires in future. And they’re not the only technology that can be used to sense impending disaster, with Josh Solomon, from Go Wireless NZ and Scopious, promoting the use of LoRaWAN sensors — known for their impressive range and low power consumption — for monitoring everything from excessive temperatures to rising water levels, gas leaks and more.

Another way to prepare for natural disasters is through augmented reality (AR) video games, which can be used to simulate situations such as floods. Misha Mirza, from HIT Lab NZ, designed several such games as part of her PhD, with in-game tasks including collecting important objects before evacuating and moving electrical equipment to higher ground before the water level causes an electrocution risk. Players can learn skills such as situational awareness, navigation and the ability to keep calm under pressure, which will help them prepare for emergencies in the real world.

The future

Public safety agencies may be deploying cutting-edge solutions now, but what does the future hold? As noted by Pete Bains, Director of BAINZ Consulting, the next generation of comms networks needs to be resilient enough to handle any future hazards or natural disasters — bearing in mind that such disasters are likely to increase in frequency thanks to climate change. This may mean assessing the strengths and weaknesses of different network topologies (ring, star, bus, etc); looking into architecture which can operate in isolation after catastrophic failure of the primary core; or utilising ETSI’s Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) capability, which allows software applications to tap into real-time information about local-access network conditions.

In the panel session ‘Non-terrestrial vs terrestrial networks’, participants discussed the pros, cons and synergies of both types of networks. Next Generation Critical Communications (NGCC) Relationship Manager Paul Smith confirmed that New Zealand’s incoming PSN has been designed for future resilience, with satellite connectivity being a part of that. One NZ CTO Tony Baird added that his company signed a deal with Starlink following New Zealand’s 2023 disasters, to add satellite coverage to augment its terrestrial networks (with One NZ’s Starlink SMS service set to begin later this year, followed by voice, data and IoT services in 2025). Rohde & Schwarz Head of Telecommunications Senthil Sundram meanwhile acknowledged that non-terrestrial networks have their own challenges that need to be addressed (including synchronisation, signal fading and power savings optimisation), with different satellite options having different strengths and weaknesses.

According to Smith, the best-case scenario is a hybrid network that features a range of technology — a point that was echoed by New Zealand Police’s Kerei Gray, who said his employers support a broad range of comms solutions for different circumstances. That said, Smith said such technologies should all broadly look, feel and operate the same way, because users won’t want any complicated set-up beyond turning a couple of switches (or pressing a “big dumb button”, according to Elmes). It may sound too good to be true, but as demonstrated over the course of the conference, critical comms technologies have advanced considerably over just the last few years, becoming more converged and interoperable, so the possibilities for the future really are vast.

Comms Connect will return on 16–17 October (plus pre-conference workshops on 15 October) with its flagship show at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre, with over 80% of the expo floorspace already sold at the time of writing. We are now also seeking case studies and technology papers to be presented at the conference, with abstract submissions closing on 2 August. For more information — including visitor registration, the call for papers and exhibition/sponsorship opportunities — visit https://melbourne.comms-connect.com.au/.