Frequentis TETRA Gateway for integration of various control centres

The state-wide emergency services digital radio now connects 17 control centres of the fire brigade and emergency medical services of North Rhine-Westphalia, via the NRW concentrator developed by Frequentis. The remaining 43 non-police emergency control centres are planned to be connected during the course of the expansion project over the coming years, better equipping the region for all emergency service incidents.

North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous federal state in Germany; 60 control centres of the fire brigade and emergency medical services serve 18 million inhabitants. 17 of the 60 control centres are currently connected to the emergency services digital radio via the NRW concentrator.

Frequentis was first commissioned to connect the 60 non-police emergency control centres to the state-wide emergency services digital radio in 2013 and developed a solution based on the Frequentis Unified TETRA Gateway. The individual, local control centres which coordinate the non-police emergency services connect their individual systems via the open, standardised interface of a “digital radio connector”. For redundancy purposes, this is also installed in five separate equipment rooms. The system enable central resource-saving, through the shared use of the emergency services digital radio and allows numerous control centres, including those from different manufacturers, to use the services of the TETRA emergency services digital radio.

Digital radio connector enables connection of individual, local control centre systems

The “digital radio connector interface definition” was developed by a forum of the Professional Mobile Radio Association (PMeV) in Germany. Thanks to the digital radio connector, the same radio network is now available to all non-police control centres and emergency services. The advantages of this are very high network availability, safeguarding against the infiltration of radio traffic, improved voice quality, secure data exchange and personal user management functions for the control centres. The relevant rights for the use of this and other services are centrally administrated by the technical operations team of North Rhein-Westphalia via the newly built concentrator network.

Ludger Heintz, Head of Department 5 in the State Office for Central Police Services Nordrhein-Westfalen regards the uniform and networked communication of all emergency services via a shared radio network as a key security element: “The comprehensive functions, such as encrypted group call and private call communication including emergency services or data services, such as short messages or status messages, are now also available to the control centres of the non-police emergency services”.

“In North Rhine-Westphalia, the project is a key milestone with positive effects for other federal states. The function of the digital radio connector benefits all manufacturers throughout Germany, through the creation of a standardised, manufacturer-independent interface,” says Robert Nitsch, Director Public Safety at Frequentis.