The testing evaluated the extent of interoperability between different vendors’ interpretations of the 3GPP Release 14 versions of the mission critical push to talk (MCPTT), mission critical data (MCDATA) and mission critical video (MCVIDEO) (collectively referred to as MCX). The goal of the event series is to validate the 3GPP standards, provide a platform for vendors to test their implementation and products, and ultimately achieve a single, interoperable, global standard.
A full report and the test specification will be made publicly available on the ETSI website in due course. The newly added MCPTT Plugtests test scenarios will go through ETSI Technical Committee TCCE for approval and will become part of ETSI TS 103 564.
The week-long event took place last week at the Texas A&M Internet2 Technology Evaluation Center (ITEC) at the Disaster City in College Station, Texas, and was organised by ETSI and supported by TCCA, the National Institute for Standards and Testing (NIST) Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR), the Public Safety Technology Alliance (PSTA) and the European Commission. FirstNet also took a great interest in the second MCPTT Plugtests. It involved 120 participants on site, plus support from remote labs.
ETSI states that planning for the next MCX Plugtests event is underway and details about it will be posted on the ETSI and TCCA websites in due course.
“This event shows how productive the relatively small critical communications industry can be when it collaborates and works together towards a common goal,” said Harald Ludwig, chair of TCCA’s Technical Forum. “It is essential that exhaustive tests are conducted to ensure the end user can completely rely on their equipment in a crisis situation.”
Saurav Arora, ETSI MCPTT Plugtests manager, said: “During this second MCPTT Plugtests the vendors could test their 3GPP Rel-14 implementations including MCData and MCVideo with each other. The observations from the testing have been collected and 3GPP related observations will be fed back to the appropriate 3GPP working groups for correction or clarification of the 3GPP specifications.”
The full list of participants is as follows:
Tested Equipment: MCPTT Application Servers (17 vendors):
Airbus, Alea, Cisco, Ericsson, Genaker, Frequentis (participating AS integrated in Control Room), Harris Corporation, Huawei, Hytera, Kapsch CarrierCom, Leonardo, Motorola Solutions, Nemergent, Nokia, StreamWIDE, TASSTA, TD Tech.
MCVIDEO Application Servers (seven vendors):
Alea, Ericsson, Genaker, Harris Corporation, Hytera, Nemergent, StreamWIDE.
MCDATA Application Servers (10 vendors):
Airbus, Alea, Ericsson, Genaker, Harris Corporation, Hytera, Kapsch CarrierCom, Leonardo, Motorola Solutions, Nemergent.
MCPTT Clients (20 vendors):
Airbus, Alea, Armour Communications, Etelm, Funkwerk, Genaker, Harris Corporation, Huawei, Hytera, Kapsch CarrierCom, Leonardo, Mission Critical Open Platform (MCOP), Nemergent, Nokia, Prescom, Softil, Sonim, TASSTA, TD Tech, Valid8.
MCVIDEO Clients (eight vendors):
Alea, Funkwerk, Genaker, Harris Corporation, Hytera, Nemergent, Nokia, Softil.
MCDATA Clients (eight vendors):
Airbus, Alea, Etelm, Genaker, Harris Corporation, Hytera, Leonardo, Softil.
Evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Services (eMBMS) Components (five vendors):
Athonet, Expway, ENENSYS Technologies, Huawei, one2many.
LTE network components (three vendors):
Athonet, Ericsson, Expway.
User Equipment (six vendors):
Airbus, Bittium, Funkwerk, Huawei, Sonim, TD Tech.
IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) (one vendor):
Athonet
Audio Quality Tester (one vendor):
Spirent
Observers (seven organisations):
AT&T, Department of Homeland Security, French Ministry of Interior, TCCA, Southern Linc Wireless, UK Home Office, Verizon Wireless.
