1. Why the Southern African TETRA Association was formed The mobile radio industry, from manufacturer to dealer, to user, has entered a significant period of change. If the change is not managed, the low margin, low quality, fragmented market that exists today will continue, to the detriment of not only the industry but to the users, the regulators and the country.
Cellular has led the way in showing how the adoption of a truly open standard technology (GSM) can benefit everyone. Professional Mobile Radio needs to follow this example as it moves into the digital era and a host of new features and facilities become available.
The formal reasons that the Southern African TETRA Association was formed are set out it the Association's Charter under section 2 of this paper.
But it is more than this: The industry has been in decline for some time, skills have been lost to more modern communication technologies such as DECT and GSM and most users are not completely satisfied with their current, limited facility systems. Spending on communications equipment and services is also in decline. SATA wants to help stop, and then reverse the decline; wants a strong, unfragmented, expert industry which will attract new entrants, especially men and women from the historically disadvantaged communities, and will work to this end with training programmes and by making information available to all interested parties.
But consider the possible alternatives to a strong open-standard industry: The continuance of the status quo; a variety of proprietary and semi-standard digital technologies enter the market, which will again fragment the market. Because of this, the supply chain will be dominated by foreign companies rather than by local businessmen, engineers and investors. The industry will decline further. Is that what South Africa and its people want and deserve?
Finally, SATA, with its world-wide connections at both personal and Association level, and its already considerable depth of knowledge of TETRA, is a resource available to the Government and the Regulator in issues related to the industry.
2. The Charter of the Association
The Southern African TETRA Association recognises that there is now, and will be in the future, a need for professional digital mobile voice and data communications, as embodied in the ETSI RES6 Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) standard.
This market for such communications is distinctive and is different from that for consumer mobile telephony. Potential users include: public safety organisations; commercial transport and fleet operators and many organisations requiring local and wide area dispatcher-based mobile voice and data communications, on private or virtual private networks.
The objectives of the Southern African TETRA Association are:
· To facilitate the introduction of digital mobile radio networks conforming to the ETSI TETRA standard in Southern Africa
· To promote the establishment of TETRA networks for public access, public safety and private mobile or fixed wire-less communications and to develop, within the mobile communications industry, a unified approach to the establishment of such networks
· To seek to educate potential users of TETRA about the standard, the technology and the applications available (now and in the future) and to make information about TETRA easily available to such users and to the industry as a whole
· To support the allocation of harmonised frequency bands in accordance with recognised international TETRA frequency bands for public and private TETRA networks throughout Southern Africa, and to promote roaming and interoperability across national boundaries
· To develop expertise in TETRA technology in Southern Africa
· To promote TETRA applications which are important in Southern Africa, for example, low cost rural mobile communications, vehicle fleet tracking and management and various safety and security applications
· To encourage organisations to sign the International TETRA Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
· To work towards standardised TETRA interfaces and applications where these are not covered by ETSI RES6 in co-operation with the International TETRA MoU Association
· To establish a close working relationship with the International TETRA MoU Association with the purpose of becoming a Southern African Working Party of ETSI RES6
Membership is open to representatives of organisations that are prepared to formally support the objectives of the Southern African TETRA Association.
25th August 1999 3. Why you should join the Association
Having read the Charter in section 2, and understanding the consequences of not managing the change described in section 1, it should become clear that SATA is not only desirable, but essential.
You may very well ask why, since the Land Mobile Radio Association exists, is another industry group needed?
SATA and its sister organisation, the Land Mobile Radio Association, do not compete, although there are inevitably some areas of overlap in the respective aims and objectives. Rather, they complement each other. Both are needed to steer the industry into the future.
Further, SATA is looking for a broader membership than is normally attracted to the LMRA. Like the International MoU Group, SATA wants to attract other players in the supply and operating chain from research houses, educational establishments, consultants, network operators, regulators and so on.
You should join the Association for several reason, not the least of which is to be "in" at the start of the next exciting period in the industry's development. But more importantly it is to be able to educate yourself on this new technology, its features and its capabilities, and its opportunities, so that you can develop a new evolving role for your business or activity
SATA will have a regular newsletter relevant to the entire supply chain, the users, the network operators and investors, and plans to hold commercial, investment and technical workshops. Membership will give you access to a library of papers and literature on the subject of TETRA.
4. Some of the issues SATA will take up with ETSI and the International MoU Association Professional Mobile Radio is a "regional" business. TETRA was designed for a broad spectrum of general applications in Europe and other developed countries. Most of these applications are equally suitable for African communications systems, but, as is recognised in both ETSI and the International TETRA MoU Association, there are "regional" requirements which have to be taken into account by ETSI as TETRA develops as a universal, world-wide standard.
Already the TETRA Group in Australia is active in providing ETSI with "regional" requirements from Australasia, for example TETRA at 512 MHz. Local requirements from other regions, such as South America and the Middle East are now under consideration.
It is right therefore that ETSI and the International TETRA MoU group take into account the "regional" requirements from the developing markets of Africa, and more immediately, Southern Africa.
The issues SATA will be taking up with ETSI and the International MoU Association include, but are not restricted to the following:
· TETRA vs competing technologies in the context of Africa · The application of TETRA to rural communications, including wireless local loop, distant learning, tele-medicine and "government on line" · Thin route TETRA for the long roads and railways in Africa · Soft migration from conventional analogue systems to TETRA · Standardisation and harmonisation of frequencies across Southern Africa · TETRA in other bands e.g. 150 MHz · Dual mode TETRA and GSM hand-portables · Applications for African railways in general and commodity routes · Encryption using national standards · TETRA in tactical environments in Africa e.g. rapid deployment systems
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