Discussing the significance of the appointment, a spokesperson said: “TCCA’s TETRA interoperability testing and certification process underpins the ongoing success of the TETRA standard. The independence of the process ensures the ongoing strength of the market.
“DEKRA was chosen from a number of bidding companies after evaluation by TCCA and its TETRA manufacturer members. Several DEKRA offices around the world will be involved in supporting the TETRA IOP process, including those in Germany, Chile, China and Spain.”
The spokesperson continued: “TCCA’s TETRA IOP process is managed by TCCA’s Technical Forum, and was developed to enable a truly open multi-vendor market for TETRA equipment and systems.
“The multi-vendor market gives concrete benefits both to the users in terms of a wide portfolio of compatible equipment, competitive pricing and rapid development of new product models, and to the industry in terms of a wider accessible market, faster market take-up and better possibilities for investment in new development. The certification process is funded by the participating manufacturers.”
According to TCCA, test targets and priorities for the IOP process are set jointly between TETRA users, operators and manufacturers. For each feature to be certified, a TETRA Interoperability Profile (also known as TIP) specification is created within the Technical Forum working groups.
Once approved in the Technical Forum, a detailed Interoperability Test Plan document is produced, which provides the basis for the certification testing.
The spokesperson said: “With these official test documents, test sessions can be conducted between manufacturers’ infrastructure and devices at a host manufacturer premises.
“DEKRA will witness the testing sessions, analyse the results and issue the detailed official Interoperability certificates and test reports. These certificates are available to anyone looking to verify the interoperability of TETRA infrastructure and devices across multiple manufacturers and to inform purchasing decisions.
“TCCA would like to thank DGTCSI-ISCTI which has provided TETRA IOP certification services for TCCA and the TETRA manufacturers for more than 20 years.”
Senior vice president, global connectivity and ITS technologies at DEKRA, Thomas Jäger said: “DEKRA`s expertise in cellular communication technologies goes back to the times when GSM and TETRA were developed more than 35 years ago. Since [those] days, our teams have been part of all further standardisation activities including conformance, interoperability and functional testing.
“TETRA has been important for public safety in Europe. Colleagues working at DEKRA have been involved in supporting the large scale deployment in Germany from 2009 onwards. Safety is part of our DNA and we are delighted to be the partner of TCCA.”
TCCA CEO Kevin Graham said: “It is clear that TETRA will remain as the world leading digital trunking solution for many years. And therefore the need for ongoing IOP testing and certification, especially as the TETRA standard continues to be enhanced.
“We are pleased to have DEKRA, an expert global organisation, continue these important independent certification services.”
