Hytera, a global leading Professional Mobile Radio (PMR) solution provider, participated in Critical Communications Week (CCWeek) 2020 as a Brand Leader sponsor to showcase its latest innovations and shared perspectives on the evolution of communications technologies from 2G to 5G. CCWeek, a five-day virtual exhibition and conference on Nov. 2-6, offers a new opportunity for stakeholders of the critical communications sector to network after the Critical Communications World 2020 offline event was cancelled due to the pandemic.
On the first day of the fully packed five-day conference progromme, Simon Yin, general manager assistant of Hytera Americas, shared with attendees Hytera’s insight of how the critical communications sector is to move forward in the 5G era. Hytera believes that there is no single technology capable of fixing all problems, instead it will be “2+5+N”, a hybrid and convergent way of meeting a multitude of requirements.
“2” stands for 2G technologies, such as TETRA, which provides stable and reliable voice services for critical communication users. TETRA, as the most successful PMR technology, will remain as the first choice of mission critical voice services thanks to its great availability, reliability and security. Since the technology itself keeps evolving, Hytera sees TETRA as a viable technology in years leading to 4G and 5G era.
“5” stands for 5G that supports high throughput, low latency and massive connections. In 3G/4G LTE era, in order to satisfy the increasing demand of data services, there are mainly two paths available for mission critical and industrial users. One is private LTE, the other one is Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO). One common choice for critical communication on broadband systems is Mission Critical Service (MCS), an open standard defined by 3GPP. When it comes to 5G, the two paths technologically merge and converge, since 5G from bottom up is designed for industries, which not only enables the telco to explore business opportunities into vertical sectors, but also empowers industry users with their private network in ways such as network slicing.
“N” stands for various applications based on different technologies. Numerous services and apps will be made available for industries by developers. Hytera believes the key is how to get the best out of each technology and converge them into an interconnected network. When multiple technologies and vendors are involved, the optimal situation for mission critical users is that they can choose freely from an open ecosystem and establish the critical communications infrastructure following an open protocol, which is important now and in the future.
