Wireless - Building on Tetra
C. Edwards · Engineering & Technology · 2006
The UK's emergency services have dropped their old analogue walkie-talkies in favor of the Tetra-based digital radios as blue light services begin to piggyback on high-speed commercial networks and standards. Airwave's Tetra is expected to become the principal network that emergency workers use to stay in voice contact. Tetra supports data transmissions, and while Tetra may become the dominant data transmission standard, other wireless-based data transmission standards are likely to continue in use. With a 20-year lifespan, Tetra will have to coexist with a rapidly changing set of commercial bearers that could ultimately supplant it. The emergency services are gradually moving from a world where they have needed dedicated communications standards to one where additional software and hardware may be enough to do most of the work. Networks such as Mobitex and Tetra may be the fall-backs when more complex services fail.