‘Our critical broadband portfolio will enable customers effectively secure critical communication needs of sectors such as public safety, energy, transportation, manufacturing,' says Per Narvinger Ericsson has launched its critical communications broadband portfolio for service providers. This will enable service providers to meet the business-critical and the mission-critical needs of industries, as well as public safety agencies as digitalisation and modernisation of land mobile radio communications increase. When communication is disrupted by minutes, seconds, or even milliseconds, it can have huge consequences for business operations, or even lead to serious implications for the public safety. The need for fast and reliable communication is therefore paramount. Such critical communications are used in many areas, from first responders and nationwide emergency services, to workforce safety in enterprises. There is a growing demand for business and mission critical broadband for those use cases. Accordingly, service providers need to deliver the highest level of availability, reliability, and security in order to meet this demand. In order to meet critical communications users' needs, Ericsson has developed a new portfolio comprising of three offerings, namely the Critical Network Capabilities, Critical Broadband Applications, and Flexible Deployments for both local private networks, and nationwide mission-critical LTE networks. "We see growth opportunities for service providers and government operators by addressing new segments with LTE/5G networks. Our critical broadband portfolio will enable our customers to effectively secure the critical communication needs of sectors such as public safety, energy and utilities, transportation, as well as manufacturing," says Per Narvinger, the head of Product Area Networks at Ericsson. This offering includes advanced features for critical network performance, and covers the following: high network availability, multi-network operation with spectrum sharing techniques, as well as coverage and capacity for critical applications. It also includes network security capabilities which ensure that network services are maintained even when the infrastructure is under attack. Finally, the quality of service, priority and pre-emption all guarantee latency performance and capacity requirements during high load and congestion. The critical network capabilities include new features which simplify the rollout of broadcasting services across nationwide areas. Another new feature enables radio access sites to operate in fall-back mode, should the network connection fail. This offering also includes deployable systems which allow temporary coverage for disaster recovery and operations in rural areas without existing coverage. Moreover, new business models are emerging for industries. From owning and operating their own networks, critical industries are now procuring private networks and services which leverage service providers' existing network assets and operations, without compromising required local control. Ericsson's flexible deployments for private networks range from network slicing to fully dedicated networks, enabling service providers to offer scalable, as well as critical broadband network solutions and services for critical industries. Furthermore, critical broadband will enable industries to increase efficiency through enhancing workforce productivity and safety, massive onboarding of devices and sensors, as well as real-time location of assets and equipment, in addition to data collection in order to boost equipment and personnel performance and avoid downtime. "The critical communications industry is developing ways to deliver critical mobile broadband solutions for professional users, augmenting today's critical voice communications. Through its new portfolio, Ericsson is empowering service providers to address this growing segment by leveraging their existing LTE infrastructure and operations in an affordable and scalable manner," says Thomas Lynch, executive director at IHS Markit.
