MCX – Why now is the right moment to ramp up public safety in the EU

If you have not heard about MCX in public safety, let me briefly explain why I think it is one of the most important developments of this decade, one which will better support mission critical communications across borders. 3GPP Standard “Mission Critical Services” (short MCS or MCX) refers to critical communication applications and infrastructure that support public services, such as protection and disaster relief. MCX is defined as the application- and service layer of Public Protection and Disaster Relief (PPDR) broadband communication networks. The “X” stands for the diverse set of application areas like MCPTT (mission critical push-to-talk), MCData and MCVideo, as well as several mission critical administration services. Today, standard radio communication technology, which is currently used in the field, is reduced to audio communication with limited data features.??

We cannot deny that climate change has caused a significant increase in severe natural disasters (if you think of the recent floods or forest fires in Europe) as well as new social challenges, as COVID-19 just has proved. I strongly believe these developments amplify the need for public services and especially first responders to collaborate across domains on a national and international level, including the need for top-notch communication features. To ramp up public safety in the EU we should have one common goal: the renewal and improvement of safety critical communication networks in Europe. MCX provides a number of answers to growing questions, which I want to explore with you.?

How can MCX help first responders??

Imagine three scenarios: A wildfire, a police chase, and a health emergency – all taking place across several countries and borders.??

Today, first responders face a lot of hurdles when managing these scenarios often with regional digital radio communication systems that are not interoperable with other regions or countries. Instead, they need to do manual integration to get external help for cross border missions. If teams from several countries are joining a mission, there is no way to talk with the foreign command and control units and the home base at the same time using the same communication system for both (now they have often two sets of devices, but no time for using both). Border control is also extremely difficult, making it almost impossible to chase criminals across political borders without having any local support being in constant contact with authorities on each side of the border. Much support for first aid across borders is also manually driven and requires multiple devices on location. Equally, in health sectors it is very difficult to share important patient data safely for medical experts supporting across borders.?

The question here is how can we assist public services, enabling them to seamlessly cooperate across domains and regions with the same resources and budget, as well as enhance the quality and efficiency of their service? It is also essential to improve response times in the event of limited staff in the control room or the field (for example during COVID-19).??

For me, next to a possible pan-European communication system, the delivery of extended capabilities through MCX based broadband communication will be a big part of the solution.??

Elements to transition European communication networks across Europe?

A future with MCX based communication in European public services??

What could the future with MCX-based broadband communication look like? In the forest fire, fire fighters from various countries will be connected to the local chain of command from the beginning, allowing all to exchange critical information. In the police chase across several boarders, connection to the main control room would be maintained, while all information streams, including live video feeds from the field, were continually monitored in real-time by all participating dispatchers and local forces; all new intelligence would also be continuously shared with the mobile team following the convoy. And a pan-European eHealth system remote connection to first aid experts on European level, access to patient’s medical history if essential for first responders onsite and effective cross-border vehicle dispatching would be enabled, as well as fast connection to hospitals to forewarn of arrivals.?

How could a transition to MCX based broadband communication look???

If you ask me why MCX based broadband communication is not already in use for public safety across Europe, or why using a commercial smartphone and its access to existing LTE/5G networks for this purpose is not enough, there is a simple answer: mission critical communication infrastructure has different and more complex needs, which commercial communication infrastructures of today cannot provide. Key demands such as continuous availability (>99,9%), reliability (lowest probability of failure), rock-solid security, prioritisation of critical information flow, or geographic coverage are a necessity, but are not covered by commercial mobile operators yet.?

The transmission of essential multimedia information (e.g., video or images) from the caller of the emergency service to the recipient (such as in the Next Generation 112 project) only works with mission critical services based on dedicated communication networks and on strongly enhanced commercial mobile networks.?

However, if we would use the available public or dedicated 4G/5G mobile phone networks and combine this with mission-supporting specialist applications we could enable highly efficient and secure communication.??

4G/5G mobile networks allow multimedia, safety-related and mission-supporting multimedia data such as situation information, position data, images, or live videos to be securely received from an incident and be distributed to the mobile emergency services equally across domains, supporting the optimal and efficient decision-making processes during future operations. Unfortunately, these are also skills that the public safety radio networks are currently lacking.??

I believe that another success-factor for cross-border services, and to push MCX forward, is the interoperability with any future national implementation. And this is highly dependent on standardisation and regulations. By now, there are currently only declarations of intent for this across the EU. Politically, we are just at the beginning.??

Where should we start??

The basis is standard based 3GPP communication networks with mission-critical services on application layer, which also enable the interaction of legacy radio networks. In this way, we can ensure continuous operations during migration and beyond. As I mentioned before, it is important that rules and regulations hold on pan-European level. It goes without saying that security issues and data confidentiality are also important.?

I am however happy to share some good news on this topic; an impressive number of 13 European countries are already involved in the planning of such a pan-European mission-critical broadband communication network called “BroadNet” that shall support European blue light organisations of all domains: BroadWay, a pre-procurement research project within the Horizon 2020 program is in its final phase after successfully executing three phases since October 2019. Frequentis is leading one of the finalist consortiums with 16 other highly specialised organisations across six European countries. The live systems in the pilot phase include private networks for authorities, with roaming capabilities to European commercial mobile network operators and using roaming hubs to securely connect MCX users across countries. This standardised approach for cross-border broadband will also create some useful specifications.?

It is important to me that Frequentis provides end-to-end applications and services based on Standard? Mission Critical Services over broadband communications as soon as possible. We want to empower first responders in the field and in the control room today, rather than tomorrow. For this reason, alongside our partner, Nemergent Solutions SL, we have created a pioneering trial version of a solution, called “MissionX”. This multitenant solution includes features like MCPTT, Voice, MCData communication, MCVideo communication, messenger functions, secure transmission of huge amounts of data, and more new features provided by an eco-system of client applications. And of course, it supports the integration of control centre solutions.?

We need to start working now!?

To sum up, disasters do not stop at political borders and first responders should not be limited by location in their ability to support. With new and better communication technologies that share information across domains and regions we can save more lives. I therefore clearly see the opportunity to change the paradigm for the operation of first responders using standardised, resilient, and secure communication solutions based on high-availability broadband communication networks that will also help improving also cross-border collaboration significantly. Especially our fully standard solution based on 3GPP Mission Critical Services applicable for high-availability broadband communication networks can be a game changer in the future. Frequentis can lead the way in ramping up public safety in the EU, allowing a smooth migration through our mission critical communications network services. With MCX we can dramatically improve our European public services and better support first responders - #forasaferworld.?

I have to thank our MCX specialist Charlotte Roesener , for helping me with structuring my thoughts and by providing her expert knowledge on this exciting topic.??

If you want to share your thoughts on MCX in public safety, feel free to comment under this article or contact our specialists directly.?

Norbert Haslacher is CEO of Frequentis AG since April 2015. His experience and extensive knowledge of IT play a key role in the strategic alignment and ongoing development of the Frequentis Group – always driven by the purpose of creating and working #forasaferworld. Under his leadership, Frequentis has driven forward its international business, based on the innovative IT and software-centric product portfolio, as a publicly listed company, paving the way for an even stronger global presence. ?