Airbus pushes mission-critical standard

Airbus will intensively contribute to the next steps in finding a global standard for mission-critical multimedia group communication. After the 3rd Generation Partnership Project’s (3GPP) completion of release 14 of secure multimedia group communication in December 2017, Airbus and its partners within 3GPP are now working on release 15 and 16 by the end of 2019. 3GPP is a global initiative that unites various standard development organisations and sets international telecommunications standards as well as system specifications.

One of the prime intentions is to improve real-time video group communication (MCVideo) and develop a thorough 5G solution. “It is all about verifying the current developments and test transparently the interfaces between our solutions and those of our partners in the 3GPP. We are expecting that the outcome evolves powerfully and will be confirmed in tests in June 2018 and in 2019,” says Eric Davalo, Head of Strategic Development for Secure Land Communications at Airbus.

One of the areas Airbus will closely look at during the plug test in June 2018 is how its application Tactilon Agnetwill work with Mission-Critical Push to Talk and Mission-Critical Data solutions (the safe transmission of messages, pictures and videos, but not in real-time). These solutions equally comply with the 3GPP releases 13 and 14 standard definitions. Both mission-critical functions refer to a functionality which allows immediate availability for group and one-to-one communication.

However, the definition of the Mission-Critical Video will still require further improvements with the release 15, before it can be intensively tested. Furthermore, the application’s hybrid use in Tetra and broadband networks will also be under scrutiny to find the best standard. 

“Next June we will take part in an international plug test in Disaster City in Texas, United States, where we will check collaboratively the next level of standard developments with other companies,” says Eric Davalo.“Afterwards, we will be focusing on mission-critical video group communication and start considering the 5G networks which evolve naturally out of the existing 4G technology. Our ideas look really promising.”