Throughout this summer, BroadMap project partners have been busy organising workshops to gather together an unprecedented set of opinions from PPDR end users with regard to the future of their mobile technologies.
Overall, BroadMap workshops have involved 242 PPDR organisations from 17 countries across Europe cumulatively gathering more than 600 participants, including practitioners from national police forces, fire brigades, emergency services, customs authorities, militaries, traffic agencies, post and telecom operators, mountain rescue services, port authorities, coast guards, as well as several national ministries of interior and defence. Further discussion with PPDR end users will continue in the coming months.
Feedback from the workshops has been a success with practitioners taking a strong interest and expressing their thanks for the opportunity to contribute their opinions. The BroadMap consortium has obtained a comprehensive insight into the viewpoints of different PPDR representatives. The workshops have gathered a diverse set of opinions which will be used to validate requirements for EU interoperable broadband for PPDR from the largest community of PPDR end users ever consulted.
The next step for the project will be to analyse the gathered opinions and determine associated solutions and roadmaps, to inform an EC co-funded pre-commercial procurement activity due to commence in 2018.
Public Safety Communication Europe (PSCE) has been leading and coordinating the BroadMap project. The Chair of the PSCE User Committee, Manfred Blaha, presented BroadMap at the APCO conference, taking place in Orlando, Florida, from 13th to 16th August 2016. The Conference featured a number of discussions to learn and mutually benefit from activities of FirstNet in the US.
BroadMap project coordinator, David Lund, will join the next 3GPP SA1 meeting where requirements for mobile standards will be discussed including mission critical broadband functionalities. BroadMap intends to inform the standardisation community of its key outcomes and where priorities may lie for the PPDR community and those considering to procure new broadband mobile applications, networks and devices for PPDR.
In November 2016, BroadMap will organise a Stakeholder Workshop, where the outcomes of the national workshops will be presented. The event will be open to PPDR practitioners, as well as the participants of the BroadMap workshops held this summer. The Stakeholder Workshop will present the latest developments of the BroadMap project, including the results of the workshops, and invite participants to submit feedback. More details about the stakeholder workshop will become available soon on the BroadMap website www.broadmap.eu.
BroadMap will be presented at the next PSCE Conference, to be held in Athens, Greece, from 22nd to 24th November 2016. FirstNet, the USA authority managing the nationwide wireless broadband network for public safety, will also participate in the Conference. The PSCE Conferences take place biannually and gather around a hundred experts from the public safety community, including end users, researchers, and industry. This will be the 15th edition of the PSCE Conferences and will address issues related to next generation broadband, border security, natural disasters, and security by telecommunications in transport. The draft agenda and registration for the Conference is accessible on the PSCE website here.