Emergency Communications Platform Upgraded, Now Supports Tetra

By Casey Houser
Contributing Writer

A manufacturer of digital radios recently announced the latest version of its communications platform that will allow emergency response teams to better connect using Terrestrial Trunked Radio (Tetra) specification.

A division of Siemens (News - Alert), Siemens Building Technologies Division, has released the latest version of its Siveillance Connect platform that now supports Tetra and is geared for use by security control center and fire brigade officials who work at locations that contain critical infrastructures such as airports, power plants, and industrial plants.

The Siemens website claims that half of the world's population now lives in cities. As such, they are the people who most access and are the nearest to the critical infrastructures listed above. And since they are near those locations, they need security from all types of hazards. Siveillance Connect seeks to help officials prevent and halt natural disasters such as fires and other problems such as medical emergencies by bringing together several communications technologies within one package.

Siveillance Connect can consolidate communications from analog fixed lines (plain old telephone service), ISDN, VoIP, analog push-to-talk radio, mobile phones, and fax lines. This can keep officials connected through a centralized service that can manage all such communications technologies at once. A Siveillance Control dashboard makes it easy for administrators to control how their departments speak to one another and can see a visual representation of connections currently taking place. Emergency call takers can use the system to route calls and administrators can route information from one type of connection to others so everyone can become aware of pertinent messages.

Siemens markets its product as having an easy-to-use touchscreen interface that is completely software-driven. It can run on ordinary, compatible hardware, so there is no need to purchase specialized hardware to get the job done. It also runs through a VoIP-based private branch exchange system to allow the handling of various communications modalities at once.

Edited by Stefania Viscusi