Current issue

TETRA developments in the Nordic and Baltic countries

Jaakko Saijonmaa and Tiina Saaristo

Abstract

Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) is today’s field-proven radio communication technology for public safety and private utility and transport organisations. The TETRA standards and products are evolving to extended TETRA functions, further interoperability, and higher data speeds, similarly to the evolution of the GSM standards to EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution) in 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project).

Finland was the frontline country to decide and build a nationwide TETRA network for public safety. TETRA public safety networks are currently in operation in Finland, Estonia and in parts of Sweden and Iceland. The first phase of network implementation has also been started in Norway, and Denmark and Lithuania have decided to build countrywide TETRA public safety networks.

The many networks in the Nordic and Baltic area provide a good foundation for building cross-border interoperability for and generally improving public safety operations in the area. Presently, international cooperation using TETRA is limited to the use of the Finnish authority network in the maritime cooperation between the Finnish and Estonian coast guards. However, the TETRA ISI (Inter-System Interface) standard provides a good means for better communication across borders.

Planning real-life international cooperation across borders during international incidents is a complex task involving challenges far beyond the mere technical solutions. There is for example a major challenge of joint planning on how incidents are managed. Special effort goes to ensuring that only the correct people have access to another country’s network and that the privacy of the internal communications of organisations is not at risk.