How much will it cost to keep us safe?

The cost of not keeping us safe is just too high. We must act before it is too late.

Some authorities are still in the process of replacing analog public safety communications networks with narrowband digital solutions, but such ubiquitous coverage is proving to be very expensive, and it is clear that more advanced data services and even video will be required in the near future. Next-generation control rooms promise to integrate all communications in a seamless solution allowing commanders, officers, experts and the general public to interact in real time, but these solutions too are not cheap. As the evolution to LTE and LTE-A accelerates, and new smartphone models are launched every 6-9 months, how can the critical communications community keep up with the more dynamic commercial sector?

Projects such as FirstNet in the United States and ESMCP/ESN in the United Kingdom are gaining momentum and public safety LTE trials are being conducted in a number of markets, although the lack of common frequency allocations and well-defined standards remains worrying. Organisations such as TCCA/ETSI (major focus on Europe), NIST/NPSTC (USA), and CITIG (Canada) and some national authorities are working closely with 3GPP and industry to ensure that services such as group calling, direct mode, mission-critical voice and enhanced security features are considered for future LTE releases. Progress is being made but the battle is far from won.

At the same time, conflicts and disasters are becoming ever more costly, ever more deadly, putting societies under immense stress. Alarmingly, both developed and developing economies are increasingly struggling to cope with major shocks that cannot be accurately predicted or measured by governments, experts and insurance companies. An inherent flaw is becoming apparent at the heart of the current economic model when it comes to measuring, comparing and assigning different values due to new levels of complexity in market and network economies. A growing number of economists now agree that a new model is required.

The truth is that we simply cannot calculate how much it will cost to keep us safe in terms of any standard economic measure; it is the wrong way of looking at the situation we face. There is no business case for the building of a secure, resilient critical communications network, because critical communications is not a business. It is a public good and a basic human right that has to be funded publicly as part of an open and transparent process - not behind closed doors between politicians, commercial interests and their lobbyists. Societies that fail to invest sufficiently in critical communications and hand over control of basic security issues to commercial interests will find themselves having to deal with a growing number of chaotic scenarios and spending enormous sums of money clearing up the mess after the event. But those that take ownership of critical communications will lay the foundations for strong, resilient, sustainable economies.

Peter Clemons has been a prominent figure in the global critical communications industry since 1996. He is Head, TETRA Business, Americas, for Hytera Mobilfunk GmbH, and runs his own consulting company, Quixoticity.