While the awards are crucial for the critical communications industry as a whole however, they are also massively beneficial for those individual companies who enter and win. This is in terms of a company’s overall reputation and how they are viewed within the sector of course, but also the ongoing visibility of any successful products and roll outs entered in the competition.
Last year’s ICCA winners were of an unbelievably high standard, pushing the boundaries both from a technological and customer service perspective. In this article, we’re going to focus on some of the winners from last year’s awards in Vienna and remind readers why they were successful.
Airbus
Airbus won two awards on the night. These consisted of ‘Best use of critical communications in public safety’ (for innovative usage during the Dubai Expo), and ‘Best MC-X solutions of the year’ for its Tactilon Agnet 500 product.
Describing the latter in a press released published after the awards, the company said: “Tactilon Agnet is a collaboration engine, a strong push-to-x service combined with an ecosystem of apps, accessories, devices and possibilities of integration. Due to the fact that it can bridge together communications and workflow management, it can also support business processes in a new way.”
Speaking at the time, the company’s head of Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific, Selim Bouri, said: “We are so thrilled to win! It is an ultimate compliment. Tactilon Agnet is such a versatile solution. It delivers instant group communications over broadband – push-to-talk, data, video – and it does this easily and securely.”
ALDB
ALDB-CSR won in the category of ‘Advances in sustainability.’
Ericsson
Ericsson won in the ‘Emerging technology’for its mission critical 5G deployable network solution.
Discussing the product, the company said: “Ericsson and Verizon jointly conceived the idea [for the product] and partnered together in every step of building the 5G deployable network solution. This is one example of the way Ericsson co-creates new 5G applications with customers, identifying real problems that we can jointly address in the society and taking concerted action to solve the issues.”
Frequentis AG
The crucially important ‘Control room innovation’ award was won by Frequentis AG for its 3020 LifeX solution.
The company, which originated in Austria, where the 2022 awards took place, initially established its reputation in the field of control rooms for aviation. It has since branched out into other mission critical verticals, including public safety.
The 3020 LifeX solution is described by the company as a “future-orientated public safety and collaboration platform,” designed with the “next generation,” “multimedia” control room in mind.
Describing the solution in a statement, Frequentis said: “Thanks to its sophisticated, modular architecture, 3020 LifeX can integrate a variety of systems using different protocols and can flexibly exchange or upgrade them without compromising ongoing operations.”
Hytera
The ‘Best use of critical communications in transport’ award was won by Hytera, for its Sri Lanka railway telecommunications project. The award was in recognition of the roll-out of its HyTalk MC solution.
Discussing the solution after the award was announced, a spokesperson for the company said: “The integrated HyTalk MC solution enables train drivers, dispatching controllers and station masters to easily communicate with each other, thereby ensuring the smooth running of daily operations on trains, in stations, depot areas and control centres.
“SLR can interconnect its sites and provide railway personnel with real-time access to critical data, allowing them to better serve passengers and ensure smooth operation for train drivers.”
Leonardo
Another winner in the category of ‘Best MC-X solutions of the year’ was Leonardo Spa, with its CSP-MCX platform.
The company describes the product thus: “The industry standard based MCX platform enables immediate and secure communication services, compliant with 3GPP Mission Critical Services Standards Release 15. It offers PTT communication, enhanced with voice, video, multimedia chat and a set of APIs for third party application development.
“CSP-MCX is a cloud native platform, designed to support the modern software architectures based on containers and micro services. It provides benefits in terms of scalability, resiliency, efficient usage of system resources and security.”
Motorola Solutions
Motorola Solutions was recognised for its mission critical portable radio, the MXP600, which won the ‘Best TETRA device of the year.’
Describing the product, Motorola said: “Built for frontline workers, the MXP600 is a rugged, lightweight, yet fully capable TETRA portable radio that is easy to carry and easy to use.
“It has innovative audio technology to hear and be heard, best-in-class coverage, class 3 transmission power, and long battery life. Bluetooth 5.0 and NFC enable rich collaboration, providing a leading-edge user experience today and ready for mission-critical communications tomorrow.”
Sepura
Another big winner in Vienna last year was UK-based device manufacturer Sepura. The company won ‘Best use of critical communications in mining oil and gas’ for its SCG2/AutoMate application, as well as‘Best MC-X device of the year’ for its SCU3 solution. (Sepura’s Diana Ball also won the ‘Outstanding contribution to critical communications’ award, meanwhile).
Describing AutoMate in a recent edition of Land Mobile magazine, the company’s sales director,Terence Ledger, said: “AutoMate originated as a concept as something for use in the Australian mines. In that environment, you’ve got very large vehicles, big holes in the ground and lots of people moving around. It’s very dangerous.
“They wanted something that would enable them to geofence certain areas, so that if a radio user was there, the control room would know automatically. You could then alert the user via their TETRA device, automatically place them within a certain talk group, and so on.”
Telenor
Telenor ASA won in the ‘Best use of advanced technology’ for its private 5G search and rescue solution.
Telenor describes itself as:“An international company with a history that spans over 165 years, yet with a purpose that has never changed. Empowering societies by telegraph or 5G, we strive to advance, include and safeguard people. Our brand and services are deeply rooted in many nations, where we are connecting people to what matters most.”
Teltronic
Our next winner is Teltronic, who picked up the award for the ‘Best use of critical communications in utilities,’ in relation to its work with Argentinian power distribution company Edesur.
The TETRA-based project developed for EDESUR enables the latter company to detect any incident or outage in the distribution network in “practically real time.” Whereas previously monitoring 8,000-plus remote terminal units would – according to Teltronic – taken more than two hours, the new TETRA infrastructure “allows this operation to take just ten seconds.”
This in turn “establishes a new operating model for electricity production and distribution.”
Non-technical awards
As well as recognition for the solutions and roll outs discussed above, the 2022 ICCAs also included several of what might be regarded as ‘non-technical’ awards.
The first of these went to the Canadian Public Safety Broadband Network Innovation Alliance, for its work in the field of government authority collaboration. Awards also went to New South Wales Telco Authority as equality, diversity and inclusion champion, as well as Tero Pesonen in recognition of his outstanding services to TCCA.
TheTCCA young engineer of the year, meanwhile, was awarded to Shaunak Patel of NSW Telco Authority. Speaking in a recent edition of Critical Communications Today magazine, he said: “I feel recognition is extremely important on all levels, particularly for younger employees as it helps build confidence in their work. It also celebrates their contribution and empowers them in knowing they are making a difference.”
The International Critical Communications Awards are great way to raise awareness of your company’s work across the sector. Visit www.critical-communications-world.com/iccas today to submit your entry.
