Belgian operator ASTRID has recently joined the GCF, alongside Erillisverkot from Finland. This follows Sweden’s Myndigheten för Samhällsskydd och Beredskap (MSB) becoming the first public safety organisation to join as mission critical communications operators. According to a joint statement, other European organisations are also in the process of joining the initiative.
The statement continued: “On the test equipment side [meanwhile], Keysight Technologies announced being first in the market to validate at GCF 3GPP EUTRA mission critical test cases, using ETSI MCX EUTRA TTCN. These achievements facilitate conformance testing being adopted to guarantee standards compliance and ensure high reliability, performance and interworking, mandated by mission-critical communications.”
The statement continued: “All these organisations participate in the Mission Critical Services work stream. [This was] set up by GCF and TCCA to align and speed up the market availability of certified 3GPP standards-based mission critical - also referred to as broadband mission critical - services and devices.
“The GCF certification programme assures device-network and client-server compliance to 3GPP standards for mission critical devices and services, as well as contributing to reducing testing cost and accelerating time-to-market.”
TCCA CEO Kevin Graham said: "The GCF-TCCA collaboration, establishing 3GPP Mission Critical Services certification, is a crucial programme that will bring significant benefits to industry manufacturers, network operators and increased confidence to frontline end users.
“We are pleased to see longstanding TCCA government operator members such as MSB, and now ASTRID and Erillisverkot, becoming the first GCF mission critical communications operators supporting the programme.”
Graham continued: “We look forward to other network operators following their lead, and more MCX manufacturers committing to the program to ensure we build a robust 3GPP-MCX compliant and interoperable ecosystem.
“The commitment is to establish MCX server-to-server certification and develop MCX interoperability testing frameworks. [This] will ultimately result in conformance and interoperability testing covered in GCF MCX product certification."
GCF CEO, Lars Nielsen, said: “We are pleased to welcome new mission critical communications operators joining the Global Certification Forum. [We] are also pleased to welcome the active collaboration of Keysight to validate a new test solution for conformance testing, facilitating the path towards interoperable, 3GPP standards-based mission critical services and devices.”
