ETSI to hold a second MCPTT plugtest

ETSI, with the support of TCCA, PSCR, Texas A&M University (TAMU), and the European Commission, will hold the second of its MCPTT Plugtests events on 25-29 June 2018 in College Station, Texas, USA.

The event will be hosted by TAMU and – according to ETSI – will be the first time that mission-critical push-to-talk (MPCTT), MCData and MCVideo products and services have been tested for interoperability in the US.

The goal of the event is to validate the interoperability of a variety of different implementations on the market using different scenarios and test cases. The tests will be based on 3GPP, ETSI and IETF standards, and are designed for:

  • User equipment (UE) vendors
  • Evolved Packet Core (EPC) vendors
  • Mission-critical (MC) Application Server (MCPTT, MCDATA, MCVIDEO) system vendors
  • MC Client (MCPTT, MCDATA, MCVIDEO) vendors
  • Evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Services (eMBMS) vendors
  • Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)/IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) Core vendors
  • Control room vendors
  • MCPTT test equipment vendors.

The event will trial – both independently and jointly – all components of the MC communication chain, such as:

MC Services common functionalities:

  • User authentication and service authorisation
  • Service configuration
  • Affiliation and de-affiliation
  • Extended Location Features
  • (Dynamic) Group Management
  • Identity management
  • MC Security framework
  • Encryption (media and control signalling).

MCPTT:

  • Test cases considered in the first Plugtests™ event
  • MCPTT Enhancements:
  • First-to-answer call setup (with and without floor control)
  • Floor control for audio cut-in enabled group
  • Updating the selected MC Service user profile for an MC Service
  • Ambient listening call
  • MCPTT private call-back request
  • Remote change of selected group.

MCVideo:

  • Group Call (including emergency group calls, imminent peril group calls, emergency alerts)
  • Private Call (off-network)
  • Transmission Control.

MCData:

  • Short Data Service (SDS)
  • File Distribution (FD) (on-network)
  • Transmission and Reception Control
  • Handling of Disposition Notifications
  • Communication Release.

ETSI states that attendees will benefit from assessing the level of interoperability of their implications, validating their understanding of the standards, testing many real implementations, demonstrating end-to-end interoperability, and debugging their implementations at an early stage – thereby saving time and reducing costs. It adds that by attending the event, they will also be promoting MCPPT technology and its supporting ecosystem.

If your organisation is interested in attending the MCPTT Plugtests event, you can register here – please note that registration is a requirement for attendance, the registration deadline is 15 March and that ETSI highly recommends registering early so that pre-testing can begin as soon as possible.