Critical Comms

Fire stations around the world have traditionally relied on audible tones, overhead paging systems and station lighting to alert responders to emergency incidents. While these systems have served the fire service for decades, they can leave gaps in both alerting effectiveness and firefighter health. Depending on sleep stage and fatigue levels, responders may wake slowly, miss portions of dispatch information or, in some cases, sleep through station tones altogether.

STREAMWIDE has released Team on mission and Team on the run — two broadband communications platforms designed for mission-critical and business-critical operations that are aligned with 3GPP MCX standards. They bring together instant and secure voice communications, messaging and video (MCPTT/MCData/MCVideo), along with emergency management, lone worker protection, geolocation and operational management tools, within a unified environment.

VIAVI Solutions has announced the latest version of its Vertex channel emulation platform. With 400 MHz instantaneous bandwidth and support for carrier frequencies up to 23.6 GHz, Vertex 6.0 has been designed for next-generation 6G and Wi‑Fi 7/8 testing, natively supporting newly defined 6G waveform requirements and surpassing Wi‑Fi 7/8 bandwidth requirements.

Long-distance telemetry systems are central to the operation of critical infrastructure across sectors ranging from utilities and mining to energy and water treatment. However, while modern wireless technologies have made remote monitoring more accessible than ever, designing telemetry systems that remain reliable over large distances and in harsh environments is far from straightforward.

Global-PTT has launched the G5 PoC radio, the latest addition to its portfolio of professional push-to-talk over cellular (PoC) communication solutions. Designed in the USA, the radio has achieved a broad range of internationally recognised certifications, including FCC, CE, PTCRB, GCF, TDRA and GSMA, underscoring its compliance with global standards for quality, safety and network interoperability.

Drones can pose a security risk to airports, critical infrastructure, military facilities and large-scale events; however, they are difficult to detect when they fly beyond visual line of sight. German researchers have now developed an intelligent acoustic sensor solution that detects and localises drones based on their characteristic sound patterns, even without visual contact. When an unmanned aerial vehicle approaches a sensitive area, every second counts.

Ubiik’s Zephyr multipoint radio is designed for sites where power availability is constrained. Consuming only 1.8 W during RX idle makes the radio suitable for isolated locations where sites are powered by solar and battery. It offers 64 QAM modulation and up to 50 kHz channel bandwidth to boost throughput, supporting up to 250 endpoints per base or running multiple polling systems on a single network.

Improving operational technology (OT) cybersecurity starts with visibility; however, knowing what is connected is only the first step. Organisations also need to understand how assets communicate, which systems are critical to operations, where vulnerabilities exist, and what controls can contain an incident without disrupting production or essential services.

Motorola Solutions has officially completed its acquisition of D-Fend Solutions, a counter-drone technology company, for a purchase price of US$1.5 billion. Plans for the acquisition were originally announced back in June, with the deal set to provide public safety and enterprise customers with access to advanced counter-unmanned aerial systems (C-UAS) designed to safely neutralise rogue drone threats.

RFI Technology Solutions is pleased to announce an expanded portfolio of Telstra Approved products, providing customers with greater confidence when deploying infrastructure across Australia’s largest telecommunications network. The approved range includes selected antennas, couplers, loads, jumpers and splitters, giving network operators, system integrators and installers access to infrastructure that has met Telstra’s technical approval requirements for deployment within approved applications.