ASTRID does a lot of talking during WWI commemorations

ASTRID, the Belgian TETRA network operator for emergency and security services, registered significant peaks in radio traffic during the Great War commemorations held at the beginning of August.

Because of the scope of the security services deployed, there was more than double the normal amount of radio traffic on more than 20 ASTRID base stations in Liège, Leuven and Mons.

The commemorations held in several Belgian cities posed a major challenge for the police and emergency and security services. The presence of numerous royals, government leaders, ministers and other representatives made exceptional security measures necessary.

Hundreds of agents from the local and federal police, defence, staff from town and province councils, the fire brigades, the civil defence, the medical services, national and international security personnel were deployed.

The provincial control rooms and the crisis and command centres were beehives of activity. Police radio communications went without a hitch, despite a doubling of the communication on 10 base stations in the Liège area, on nine base stations in Mons and two base stations in the centre of Leuven.

On the air-ground-air base station in Liège that is reserved for communication with helicopters, there was nine times more radio traffic than normal. The Lantin (Liège) base station processed up to 105% more communication than on a normal day.

ASTRID registered a traffic peak of 2000 minutes of communication between 3. 00 and 4:00 pm on the Liège base stations, and a peak of 800 minutes of communication between 5.00 and 6.00 pm on the Mons base stations.

”As has already been frequently demonstrated at large-scale events, TETRA proves its added value in critical situations,” said Daniel Haché, ASTRID’s director external relations. “Despite an exceptional network load, the infrastructure was able to handle the traffic peaks thanks to constant network monitoring, but above all thanks to the excellent cooperation between all the security services.”

The ASTRID radio network currently has around 520 base stations located throughout the Belgian territory.