TCCA gains two new members

TCCA, the global member-led organisation for all stakeholders in the critical communications ecosystem, last week announced that a government authority has joined the association as a member — the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of North Macedonia.

Among its other responsibilities, the Ministry maintains and develops the national TETRA public safety network. The Macedonian TETRA system has been in operation since 2010, initially as a partial coverage system primarily for the border regions. After several updates and upgrades, from 2014 it has been a full-IP nationwide network. Following further enhancements in 2021, the system is running on the latest software, with completely new central switching locations and a redundant design to ensure reliable service for all user organisations.

“The Ministry of the Interior has decided to join TCCA to support the association in its mission to create and improve a secure communication environment,” said Jané Stojanov, Head of Sector for Telecommunications at the Ministry of the Interior.

“In the next period many challenges and changes in technology are expected; building of new infrastructure, new applications and a new way of thinking which will offer many opportunities. We see TCCA as a leader in the new processes and in the promotion of new technologies.

“All interested parties who are involved in the processes are members of TCCA, and that is where we belong. We want to share our experiences with other members, and of course learn new things from other community members. We believe that personal acquaintances and constant communication is the key to success.”

“We are extremely pleased to welcome the Ministry to TCCA,” said TCCA Board Chair Mladen Vratonjić. “Their long experience of operating a TETRA network will bring valuable perspective to the critical communications community, and we very much hope they will continue to support our Government Global Village initiative at Critical Communications World. This provides a platform for government organisations to discuss the opportunities and challenges involved in securing their citizens.”

The news came just eight days after Eventide, a leading manufacturer of critical voice, video, data and multi-domain recording solutions, announced its own membership of TCCA.

Eventide’s mission-critical recording solutions are trusted by customers worldwide to capture, secure and reconstruct their most important interactions. The US-based company’s NexLog DX-Series IP-based communications recording systems have been specifically designed for mission-critical 24/7 operation in emergency call-taking, dispatch, air traffic management and other critical communications environments including public and private utilities, government, security, prison services, transportation, oil and gas, mining, manufacturing and health care.

“We are excited to be joining TCCA; it is a logical step in continuing our long tradition of supporting open standards, from operating system platforms through interoperability of multiple system platforms in mission-critical ecosystems,” said Brad Basile, Eventide Communications COO. “We look forward to working with the TCCA community as the present standards evolve in the coming years.”

“The recording of interactions on critical communication networks has always been a vital facility; multi-domain logging and recall is now essential as networks evolve beyond narrowband voice and data services to MCX broadband and video,” said TCCA CEO Kevin Graham. “TCCA is delighted to welcome Eventide to our global critical communications community and looks forward to the knowledge the Eventide team can share with all given their expertise in this important part of the critical communications ecosystem.”