Told in Their Own Words: Band 68 Ecosystem Progress from Ericsson, CROSSCALL, Qualcomm, & STREAMWIDE

Demonstrated at: #CCW2023

Spectrum remains an essential resource for an ideal Public Safety Broadband Network (PSBN) deployment architecture. While some nations sidestep the spectrum question by forcing a total shift towards commercial mobile operator networks, others take a more pragmatic approach and plan for dedicated spectrum operations. This strategy ensures the PSBN has complete control of the radio resources or access to a second radio resource as an MNO backup (e.g., Belgium ASTRID) or to support tactical deployables (e.g., France Project STORM). But for the strategy to work, a PSBN operator must find spectrum below 1 GHz to avoid the propagation penalties that arise in higher frequency bands.

The World Radiocommunication Conference 2015 (WRC-2015) set aside 2 x 5 MHz of 700 MHz spectrum in 3GPP Band 68 for Public Protection and Disaster Relief (PPDR) agencies in Europe. Since that action, the TCCA has facilitated the development of a growing ecosystem offering base station radio, device, and core network support. The fruit of the effort was presented at both the Ericsson and Nokia stands at Critical Communications World 2023. This demonstration shows the elements of the Ericsson radio ecosystem supporting Band 68 as well as the CROSSCALL CORE-Z5 handset, the Qualcomm QCM6490, and the STREAMWIDE Mission Critical Services core network server support.

Thanks to Sanne Stijve at Ericsson for the quick walk-through of the progress made.