Healthcare Technology and News: Interoperable Emergency Communications are Prime Concerns

The Aerospace and Defence Group at Frost & Sullivan reportedly announced that European law enforcement, fire fighting services and emergency medical teams dealing with command, control, communications and intelligence, or “C³I,” have recognized the need to upgrade their existing technologies to those that support interoperable communications, but are wrestling with limited budgets, unclear policies and rapidly changing standards and technologies.

 

Major Sabbir Ahmed, research analyst for Frost & Sullivan, who has since retired, said that communications technology and services constitute the essential backbone for first responders.

 

“In today's unpredictable social environment wherein the services of first responders is invaluable, communication robustness is of paramount importance. Interoperable and dependable communication is the need of the hour," Ahmed said.

 

Recently, six companies reportedly collaborated to develop a common Software Defined Radio, or “SDR,” architecture for the European Union’s Defense and Public Safety Communications, or “PSC,” initiative, which is also known as the European Secure Software Defined Radio, or “ESSOR,” program that is an European Defense Agency, or “EDA” project.

 

ESSOR was formed to overcome the interaction and response time problems created by existing different communications technologies used by European Union member states and service providers including type of equipment, applications and user system requisites. The problem gets exacerbated when cross-border emergency appeals or alerts are made during terror attacks, natural calamities, disasters in general and any effort that calls for humanitarian and defence assistance.

 

In addition, new technology costs, limited individual state budgets, the small size and population of some states were making it difficult for equipment manufacturers to match demands.

 

It was decided to work primarily with a common software driven platform to deliver an instant, flexible and simultaneous multi directional wireless communications system.

 

ESSOR is scheduled for completion by end 2012 at a budgeted cost estimate of approximately $ 127 million. SDR basically attempts, and mostly succeeds, to replace all hardware components of a traditional radio communication system such as detectors, transmitting stations, modulators, demodulators, filters, and amplifiers with software driven functions via computers or other processor based computing equipment. 

 

In the aftermath of recent world tragies, citizens as well as the government reportedly identified interoperable emergency communications on national scale were the topmost priority since people had methods to communicate, but could not due to technological incompatibility.

 

Plans have reportedly been drawn by the National Response Framework, National Incident Management System and National Infrastructure Protection Plan for an all hazards, scalable response capability that relies majorly on all public and private agencies virtually teaming up and remotely executing tasks as per the directives of a coordinated command and control center via robust communications.

 

 

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