Telstra LANES PTT milestone achieved

A consortium comprising Motorola Solutions, Ericsson, Telstra and Qualcomm Technologies has announced that it has achieved the first LTE Broadcast-enabled PTT call on Telstra’s commercial LANES solution.

The group claims the LTE Broadcast capability enables PTT group calls to be delivered simultaneously to all members of a group call with high assurance and low latency, and separated from regular mobile traffic.

The enabling technology is based on the 3GPP release 13 standard, known as ‘MC-PTT over LTE’.

In a statement, the companies said the technology is complementary to extant mission-critical LMR services and can “cost-effectively extend assured PTT service to a greater number of users via mobile devices”.

The companies said the technology will enable public safety agencies (PSAs) and enterprises to extend PTT capabilities to more users via both hardened devices and regular smartphones, and provide complementary coverage and capacity to LMR networks.

The successful LTE Broadcast-enabled PTT call was made possible through Motorola Solutions’ depth of experience in mission-critical communications for public safety, Ericsson’s flexible and efficient network infrastructure, Qualcomm Technologies’ LTE Broadcast enabled Snapdragon platform and Telstra’s vast network resources and expertise in defining and deploying next-generation communications standards and capabilities.

“While mission-critical LMR systems will continue to provide the critical means of frontline communication for many years to come, this new 3GPP-based technology provides an excellent way of extending the reach of LMR networks to many more technology users, regardless of whether they communicate with a smartphone, hardened device or a desktop computer,” Motorola Solutions Executive Vice President Products and Services Bruce Brda said.

“Telstra has been providing PTT services to PSAs and business for many years. As our customers’ needs change, we are working to ensure they have prioritised access and preferential treatment for voice and data services to help them keep the community safe,” Telstra Group Managing Director, Networks Mike Wright said.

“With this world first LTE Broadcast enabled PTT call, we have shown that our LANES network can provide reliable prioritised communications to both PSAs and business customers with critical communications needs.

“PTT is part of Telstra’s LANES roadmap for our public safety customers and complements the data and VoLTE services already available using this world-leading technology.”

Motorola Solutions, Telstra and Ericsson will undertake further network trials this year with the aim of providing commercial services from 2018.

The solution combines Telstra’s prioritised-access LANES solution with Ericsson’s LTE Broadcast solution, Motorola Solutions’ WAVE 7000 PTT technology and its LEX L10 mission-critical LTE handsets, powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor with LTE modem.

The companies claim the solution delivers optimised PTT latency, flexible talk group management and call pre-emption for LTE devices such as smartphones, tablets and desktop computers. The use of LTE Broadcast allows faster call set-up times and reduced PTT latency, and uses efficient downlink bandwidths for group PTT calls.

Telstra launched its LANES Emergency solution in 2016, which included VoLTE for public safety capability.

The group said it will continue to develop the full 3GPP Mission Critical Push-to-Talk Release 13 and 14 capabilities and undertake network testing to optimise solution performance and measure key metrics such as coverage, latency and capacity.

Image courtesy Motorola Solutions.

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