NSW's CCEP pilot nears completion

NSW’s Critical Communications Enhancement Program pilot project is nearing completion.

The NSW Telco Authority’s pilot project for the Critical Communications Enhancement Program (CCEP) is steaming ahead in north-western New South Wales.

The pilot project aims to consolidate and enhance coverage of the shared Government Radio Network (GRN) in the region.

To witness the work of the program firsthand, the Authority’s board conducted a site visit in mid-November to one of the GRN’s new telecommunications towers north of Dubbo.

“These impressive towers are the lifeline of first responders in emergency service organisations,” said Beth Jackson, the board’s chairperson.

“The increased coverage within the north-west region supports first responders to more easily share information and coordinate responses to critical incidents with better outcomes for the public and the frontline.

“The pilot has increased shared radio coverage from under 60% to over 90%, equating to more than 20,000 km² of in-vehicle coverage in the region.”

Kate Foy, the Authority’s managing director, said the pilot established a blueprint for the expansion of the CCEP across the state.

“We’ve gained a lot of valuable insight and learnings from the pilot,” she said.

“We’ve laid a solid foundation and we’re looking at ways to integrate our learnings into the wider state rollout of the CCEP.”

The board also held its first regional meeting at the Rural Fire Service (RFS) facility in Dubbo, where members of the Authority’s leadership team met with local RFS volunteers.

NSW Telco Authority board members at a radio site near Dubbo.

Network developments

The CCEP was one of a number of topics covered in a presentation at Comms Connect Melbourne by Terry Daly, the Authority’s program director for public safety mobile broadband (PSMB).

Daly told the audience that the purpose of the CCEP is to combine around 70 state radio networks into a single, shared network.

“We have a fair way to go before we can achieve that,” said Daly. “We’re collaborating actively with the agencies in getting that. By doing that we aim to reduce the amount of infrastructure from about 2600 radio sites across NSW to somewhere closer to 800 refreshed sites.”

While the Authority does currently operate a network that is shared with multiple agencies, it covers only 35% of the state. By the end of the program, the aim is to have 80% of the state’s landmass covered.

“Obviously we’re looking for cost savings there, but the major benefit will be a major increase in interoperability between the agencies,” said Daly.

The CCEP’s pilot stage covers 57,000 km² and is “very close to completion”, said Daly.

“We’ve managed to reduce the 73 sites in that area down to 25 shared sites. We’ve had a dramatic increase in the shared coverage available that can be shared by all agencies.”

The next phase of the program will tackle the north coast of NSW, which — while traditionally seen as a very challenging radio environment — is a high-priority area as it is prone to natural disasters such as floods and severe storms.

These maps illustrate network coverage before (top) and after (bottom) the introduction of the pilot Critical Communications Enhancement Program in north-western NSW.

Mobile broadband

Daly also mentioned the mission-critical narrowband network that the Authority has operated since 2002 in support of NSW Ambulance’s dispatch processes. That technology and equipment has reached its end of life and is to be retired. At the same time, NSW Ambulance is increasing its demand for broadband capability to support what it calls the ‘connected clinician’ strategy, which will increasingly see demand for more data to be transmitted both to and from ambulances.

Regarding PSMB, Daly said that until it comes along, the Authority is working with mobile carriers on what is called enhanced data services to provide an interim step before getting to PSMB. “We’ve had some success with that,” he said.

“It’s also important to note that we don’t see PSMB as being implemented in a ‘big bang’ approach, which some jurisdictions have been fortunate to do,” he added. “What we do see is a series of phases that gradually evolves the capability towards true mission-critical standards.”

While the UK will migrate from its narrowband voice system and onto LTE by 2020–21, “in the Australian context we certainly see the migration taking a lot longer period, with both of those technologies operating in parallel for some time”, Daly added.

“The way we explain this migration is, we talk about it on a risk-calibrated basis,” he said. “We see some agencies with lower-risk operations migrating to a PSMB for their voice services sooner, and being able to demonstrate [its usefulness] to the higher-risk agencies over a number of years” — giving the latter agencies comfort that the technology can replace LMR.

“But we’re not setting a time frame for when that will occur; it’ll be up to the agencies to determine that based on their confidence,” Daly added.

“But to be clear, the national PSMB specification does include a requirement for PTT with mission-critical voice equivalent to what we have today.”

PTT over cellular

The Authority had been trialling PTT-over-cellular services, and has now made the solution operational. It has implemented two PTT solutions, one based on Harris’s BeOn system and the other on Motorola’s WAVE technology. These highly scalable solutions support both Android and iOS operating systems and are currently in use by more than 20 agencies across NSW.

Because the system relies upon conventional business-grade services as well as the mission-critical GRN, it is considered a non-mission-critical service.

“The objective of the PTT capability is [that] it allows secure access to the shared Government Radio Network via a standard mobile phone,” said Daly.

“There are obvious benefits to this,” he said, such as when a major incident occurs and officers may not have access to their radios.

“For example, a senior officer can immediately get in contact and assist first responders from home if the need requires.”

Images courtesy NSW Telco Authority.

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