Telstra opens Public Safety Experience Centre on Gold Coast

Telstra has officially opened its new Public Safety Experience Centre — a dedicated space at the Telstra 5G Innovation Centre on Queensland’s Gold Coast — to showcase the latest critical comms technology for police and emergency services in Australia. Open to visitors by appointment, the centre will offer live demonstrations of a variety of public safety capabilities enabled by Telstra’s network.

“We are thrilled to open this space, to serve as a hub for stakeholders to explore new connectivity solutions and show our commitment to supporting public safety agencies across Australia,” said Peggy Renders, Telstra’s Head of Industry and Government.

Among the technologies on display is a 3GPP-compliant mission-critical push-to-talk (MCPTT) solution supporting a wide range of devices including Samsung, Apple and Sonim. Supporting this is a 3GPP-compliant Interworking Function (IWF) that will enable public safety land mobile radio networks to interoperate with 4G and 5G carrier solutions.

“If deployed, this technology would change the game for emergency response agencies who want to communicate between users like they are using a radio, but with priority on our commercial network,” Renders said.

“For example, it means a dispatcher could initiate an MCPTT group call with an officer and other responders at a scene all on different devices and leveraging the IWF platform. It means faster, more seamless and secure sharing of information to better respond in an emergency scenario.

“We also have a simulation of Telstra LANES, a world-first mobile broadband data capability designed specifically to give emergency services prioritised access on our commercial 4G network,” Renders continued. This technology provides emergency services guaranteed throughput to use data-intensive applications, such as video streaming, so they can improve their operations.

The centre was officially opened by Queensland Police Minister Mark Ryan, who said it is important that frontline emergency services operations stay abreast of the latest technology developments.

“The new Public Safety Experience Centre will provide police with another important avenue for ensuring they are appropriately informed about technologies that may enhance the Queensland Police Service’s operational capabilities,” Ryan said.

“It’s great to see that Telstra recognised that Queensland, and in particular the Gold Coast, was the best location for the new national Public Safety Experience Centre.

“It’s particularly appropriate due to the fact that Queensland’s exposure to severe weather events means its frontline emergency services officers and volunteers are the busiest and best in the nation.”