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In the coming months and years we will hear more and more about the rollout of 5G networks in the Netherlands. In addition, as a customer of KPN, T-Mobile and Vodafone, we will experience the benefits of this super-fast network. In order to be able to assess the effects of 5G, it is important to first accurately assess how networks are built and what the main differences are. My name is Joost Eerland, director of Firecom BV Firecom BV is happy to share her vision on the rise of 5G in relation to mission-critical networks.
Benefits
The new 5G networks will mainly benefit companies and consumers who currently do not have enough of the current mobile bandwidth. We now have mobile coverage in almost all of the Netherlands and in many cases we can use the fast 4G network. The users of 5G will improve even further and will experience that they can exchange more data over the network compared to 4G. I think this is a wonderful development because now I can finally sit on the couch and send my drone into the hinterland, I can share live images of my car journey and I can download and watch Netflix movies everywhere. During my free time I am active in the fire service and I see many more opportunities there. I can view live images of colleagues who are doing an exploration, can share this with the control room and can open a live stream of the incident that has been created by the reporter while driving. I really can't wait to start using all of that.
Emergency organizations
There are thousands of organizations in the Netherlands that have a specific task in crisis management or disaster relief, some organizations only work within a specific building or company site (BHV), but some organizations have a national interpretation (emergency services). As a supplier of fast and reliable alarms and communication you have to make a choice which products you recommend to these customers. Companies and government institutions contact us for honest advice on how to put their communication methods in order.
Our customers currently know very well what kind of equipment they want to use to communicate. The device must be robust, sometimes waterproof, fit well in the hand, be easy to read and be able to squeak and vibrate loudly. But how are we going to control and reach those peripherals? Is the promising 5G also suitable for this and will it perhaps cause a complete revolution?
Networking
We use a network to reach mobile equipment such as a telephone. In our scenarios, this carrier is always wireless and can speak in different 'languages'. One of those languages is 4G or 5G, but traditional digital walkie-talkies and pagers also have their own language. And globally, the more information the network has to send, the less range it has. That is why an old pager system sometimes only needs one antenna for an entire municipality and 5G will use every bus shelter.
When purchasing or choosing to use a communication network, there are a few things important to determine the correct language. First of all, the amount of information you want to send, the number of users and other parameters such as security, functionalities, prioritization and much more. The range can be expanded quite easily by placing cell towers, but beware. The more data, the more masts and the more costs.
Reliability
However, there is an important aspect that only emerges with customers who use the network in situations where lives are at stake, and that happens to be our customers. Relatively speaking, this aspect is less important for the providers of the current networks and concerns reliability. The network must simply always work. I am of the opinion that an average reliable communication network should not be defective for more than one or two days per year. The well-known suppliers of telecom networks claim an uptime of 99,97% (about 2,5 hours per year outage). If the customer demands that the network must work 99,99% of the time, we arrive at a maximum outage of 1 hour.
Mission critical
The immensely popular term mission-critical communication is currently used by dozens of parties in the Netherlands, and we also participate. However, we have not determined together what is mission-critical. We can therefore advertise with this, but the customer will always determine how long the network may be off.
Range
In addition, our customers want a certain range, and especially customers with a large field of work are not able to place hundreds of transmission towers in the country themselves. These users are therefore at the mercy of the existing mobile network providers and we therefore recommend our GSM walkie-talkies or apps via the 3G, 4G or 5G network. However, we see that 4G has enough capacity to send photos and voice. At the moment, we don't need the data speed of 5G yet. In the future we will be able to offer these users the benefits of 5G, for example a security officer can send a live stream to the control room in the event of a burglar alarm. We tell you very honestly that they may not be available 11 days a year.
If a municipal organization wishes to have reach throughout the city center, this is easily achievable by rolling out its own network. We can build and manage that network ourselves. We can promise that the network will work 99,99945% of the time.
Bring it on with 5G
Now you will think, those people at Firecom are just afraid they no longer sell two-way radios. In the beginning we thought that indeed, but that was already with the release of the first phone. Over the years we have seen that telephones, pagers and walkie-talkies can work fine together. The difference from 4G to 5G won't change that much. The message to a pager is fine over 2G, 3G, 4G and will not arrive any faster over a 5G network. In terms of radio, this is fine over 4G. The speech no longer needs data. If our users also want to connect a body cam to the walkie-talkie or share a live stream, we need 5G. We are ready and look forward to using 5G!