Airbus leads LTE4PMR in France to success

Elancourt, 26 March 2019 – Together with its partners, Airbus has successfully concluded the French project LTE4PMR (Long Term Evolution for Professional Mobile Radio) and developed a secure broadband communication solution for public safety users in France.

A demonstration using realistic conditions has recently taken place in the national training centre of the French gendarmerie nationale in Saint-Astier, near the city of Périgueux in Southwestern France. The LTE4PMR solution proved that police officers can transmit encrypted multimedia information through the new LTE system using the Airbus collaboration tool Tactilon Agnet, which allows the exchange of data, videos and photos.

“Together with our partners, we progressed in developing the next-generation communication solutions for professionals. France is at the forefront of the global quest for such solutions, which include multimedia information on top of secure voice communication,” says Eric Davalo, Head of Strategic Development for Secure Land Communications at Airbus.

The research and development consortium LTE4PMR consisted of French telecommunication companies and universities: the Institut Mines-Télécom – a public institution in France dedicated to research in the fields of engineering, digitalisation and innovation – contributed to modelling and theoretical studies; Nokia helped to establish the communication infrastructure for LTE4PMR; Sequans Communications supplied and integrated the LTE4PMR chipset and services.

The project’s goal was to develop a mission-critical broadband solution that meets the demands of the public safety sector, for instance the police, firefighters and paramedics. LTE4PMR, with a total budget of around 51 million euros, was partly funded by the French authorities, through the French Banque Publique d’Investissement (BPI) and the French Programmes d’Investissement d’Avenir.

Airbus

Airbus is a global leader in aeronautics, space and related services. In 2018 it generated revenues of € 64 billion and employed a workforce of around 134,000. Airbus offers the most comprehensive range of passenger airliners. Airbus is also a European leader providing tanker, combat, transport and mission aircraft, as well as one of the world’s leading space companies. In helicopters, Airbus provides the most efficient civil and military rotorcraft solutions worldwide.

Secure Land Communications (www.securelandcommunications.com)

Secure Land Communications (SLC), an Airbus business unit, offers advanced communication and collaboration solutions to gather, process and deploy intelligence. Its portfolio is tailored to the needs of Public Safety, Defence and Transport, Utility and Industry (TUI). It includes infrastructures, devices, applications and services based on Tetra, Tetrapol and Broadband technologies (either single, hybrid or multi-technology solutions). As the European leader and a key international player, SLC has customers in more than 80 countries and employs around 1,150 people in 17 countries.

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