Things are starting to return to pre-pandemic normalcy, at least in countries with high vaccine rates. Major sport events are reopening, indoor restaurants are busier, people are meeting friends and families without wearing masks and even air travel is picking up. The permanent social effects of the pandemic remain unclear, but many people will get back to that feeling of ‘normal’ – eventually.

One of the most significant shifts during the past 20 months has surely been the accelerated digital transformation and how it has enabled widespread working from home and made industries and governments more resilient in times of crisis.

Yet digitalization goes far beyond simply maintaining productivity by connecting people and things. It is creating almost limitless new ways for organizations to smartly manage and even predict situations to help them work more efficiently, smartly and safely.

Broadband opens exciting new group communications possibilities

In critical communications, the adoption of Industry 4.0 and digitalization are accelerating the move from traditional Land Mobile Radio (LMR) to modern technologies. LTE and 5G give mission- and business-critical communications users access to more advanced push-to-talk services, innovative push-to-x capabilities and much more.

What does this mean in practice? There are numerous possible use cases; to illustrate some of them, let’s look at the following ones for public safety organizations.

Geofencing gets officers rapidly to the incident scene

Imagine a large, crowded event, perhaps an outdoor music festival or an area surrounding a stadium hosting a major football match. Suddenly, the dispatcher receives information about an emergency and is given a specific location. The dispatcher must now organize a rapid response by getting officers on the scene as quickly as possible to assess and deal with the emergency.

Using an on-screen map, the dispatcher selects an area around the incident location. The system locates all officers within the geofenced area and creates a priority communications group shown on the console. The dispatcher triggers a priority group call to inform officers of the incident, requesting them to go to the emergency scene and bring the situation under control. The system records all officer movements for post-incident analysis.

Wider coverage and interoperability protect forested regions

In another case, a national park service must manage fire incidents across a large forest area. Previously, the central fire control room used an LMR system to communicate with the fire response team, directing them to the fire site. However, setting up direct calls to remote teams in mountainous areas proved difficult because of the LMR network’s limited range and coverage.

Introducing an LTE communications solution solves the problems by providing reliable group communications over the entire area. The teams can now also use a push-to-video service to improve the control room’s situational awareness, enabling them to better manage resources. In addition, a Radio over IP (RoIP) gateway ensures interoperability between the new and legacy systems and supports existing LMR users.

See these capabilities and more in Madrid

Nokia helps public safety agencies use broadband networks and digital technologies to improve their effectiveness, address threats proactively and make faster, more informed decisions.

In case the above use cases raised your interest, you got lucky because the Nokia crew is soon travelling to one of the first face-to-face events in a long time. For a hands-on feel for this solution, Nokia Group Communications, please come and visit us at the Critical Communications World event in Madrid from 3 - 5 November 2021. Hope to see you there!