Network upgrades and standards are needed to support Canadian public safety: Ericsson

Public safety networks in Canada need to be upgraded in order to support new and emerging critical services for first responders, the Canadian Telecom Summit was told last Tuesday. During day two’s final keynote presentation, Yasir Hussain, CTO of Ericsson AB’s Canadian arm, explained that although Canada’s public safety networks have been around for decades, most of them rely on legacy technologies that only support basic voice communications and low data rates. There is a need to upgrade these networks to a reliable and interoperable public safety broadband network (PSBN) to enable new services and technologies like video streaming, secure data exchange, location tracking, automation, drones, sensors, and other Internet of Things (IOT) devices. “First responders don't just walk around with pagers and walkie-talkies” anymore, said Hussain in an interview with The Wire Report. The Ericsson exec stated that these services and the networks they rely on are important, as they can enable new use cases that improve coordination between first responders and provide them with critical information in emergency situations. “This is the kind of thing that you cannot do with a legacy LMR system, you cannot do this with a few kilobits per second,” said Hussain. Some public safety workers do have access to public 4G and 5G networks to communicate, but they are just “add-ons,” he said, highlighting the need for broadband capabilities to be integrated into the operations of first responders as an “end-to-end solution.” Because of this, Hussain said there are no guarantees “that the combination of technology that you're using in one province will 100 per cent work in the same way if you go into a different province.” That is why interoperability and interconnectivity are essential if Canada works towards establishing a PSBN, echoing recommendations from the Temporary National Coordination Office (TNCO)’s 2020 report on the topic. Hussain referred to the United States’ own PSBN, FirstNet, noting that when it comes to emergencies like natural disasters, interprovincial and international cooperation plays a big role. “There will be Canadian first responders that will support the U.S. and vice versa, so the interoperability with the system in the U.S. is a fundamental requirement,” he stated. Based on the networks Ericsson is helping deploy in other countries, including Finland, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the U.S., Hussain said a key lesson learned was the importance of standardization. If PSBNs share common standards across Canada, then a national network can emerge over time, bit by bit. “We don't have coverage nationwide yet, but you can build towards that,” he said. “If there's a project happening in Toronto and there's a project happening in Vancouver, as long as they're following the same template, you're building towards a larger network.” Often when first responders have to go deal with natural disasters, there is no existing network coverage in the area, said Hussain, highlighting the importance of bridging the connectivity gap in rural and remote areas. He pointed to the role that non-terrestrial networks and portable equipment like cells on wheels (COWs) could play in a potential PSBN. Although coverage and capacity are not as much of an issue in urban areas, there is still a strong need for first responders’ data streams to take priority over someone’s YouTube video in an emergency situation, said Hussain, noting “it isn't that the networks don't have these capabilities, the question is what extra needs to be done” to make that happen. Other takeaways the CTO highlighted was for carriers and other parties that would be involved in Canada’s PSBNs to recognize that it is a shared responsibility that requires regular engagement with first responders and public safety workers to understand their communication needs. A few years ago, the timing for PSBNs may not have been right because 5G networks were still in their infancy, according to Hussain. But, now that 5G coverage has matured and other countries have started to implement their own public safety networks, Hussain says it is time to explore it in Canada. “The rest of the world is doing it. Let's talk about it.” – Reporting by Phalen Tynes-MacDonald at pcreed@thewirereport.ca and editing by Jenna Cocullo at jcocullo@thewirereport.ca

Network upgrades and standards are needed to support Canadian public safety: Ericsson

News | November 16, 2023

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Network upgrades and standards are needed to support Canadian public safety: Ericsson

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