Bruce Scapier, managing member at Potomac Spectrum Partners (PSP) (pictured right) said that the balloon system that the company intends to use to help it roll out a nation-wide TETRA network with the help of its partners (including Space Data, the provider of the balloon technology) could be used to reduce the need to harden the cellular sites that will be used by FirstNet.
“It would also allow whoever takes on the mandate of FirstNet not to have to go back and harden all their sites. Under the current requirements, whoever does take FirstNet… would have to go back and harden every site they have which operates on their civilian systems… There’s no way anyone is going to have the capability to do this… The costs are prohibitive. Even if you had the will and unlimited money, you’re still talking about 20 years to go back and [harden] every site…”
“As the requirement is to provide a resilient redundant system, if you have an alternative floating up [in the air] you no longer have to harden that site as you have the coverage anywhere,” Scapier said, while speaking with TETRA Today ahead of his presentation at the IWCE’s Critical LTE Communications Forum.
In the event of a large scale power outage across an urban area, Scapier notes that the balloons would provide less capacity than the terrestrial network, requiring operators to triage the situation and ensure that key users have access to radio resources and put up additional balloons if required. However, he adds that this should be seen from a “glass half full” perspective, given that in the absence of the balloons in this scenario, no-one would be able to talk to each other.
He explains that one of the advantages of using balloons at 60,000 feet to provide coverage is “there isn’t anything up there that can create issues. You can’t interfere with them, you can’t take them down. Planes only fly at 30,000ft.”
Scapier explains that PSP decided to not get involved in the formal FirstNet RFP process. “We did not want to take that route for a simple reason. We wanted to be free and open to work with anybody and everybody.”
He said that the combination of the enhanced coverage PSP can provide and the bridging systems it has access to through via its partner, TASSTA, which allow full interoperability between TETRA, LTE, DMR and legacy systems “brings the FirstNet mandate into the realm of 'doable now in a cost efficient manner, while allowing existing systems to be part of the solution”.
At the Critical LTE Communications Forum, Scapier will be setting out PSP’s pricing model for customers looking to use its network. Due to the favourable pricing PSP has received from PowerTrunk for Sepura handsets “We’re talking in the neighbourhood of $500 [per radio] for top of the line TETRA capability.”
“Our message is: keep what you have and grow with whatever you choose. However, we expect most of the growth will be with TETRA married to TASSTA and coverage enhancement through Space Data’s non-terrestrial site capabilities, with the latter being used to supply both redundant coverage for sites or sole coverage where terrestrial towers cannot be deployed,” Scapier concludes.
For more details on PSP’s plans, see our previous article on the subject here.
