Crystal Code delivers World Class Tetra Solutions

00:53:53 Sunday 01/29/2012
Crystal Code at Birger Jarlsgatan in Stockholm has begun working with smart apps over RAKEL

At Crystal Code, we thought you might want to use a hybrid solution between a traditional mobile solutions and Tetra radios. This way you can synchronize large amounts of data over the mobile network and send critical status updates and alarms over RAKEL network. This can be done if the user connects a radio to his smartphone. This gives you the best of both worlds and also the opportunity to use advanced smartphones based on Android and iOS example. You will be able to deliver a quality user experience that really makes life easier for RAKEL-users and without the way having to overload the network. While retaining the important features of RAKEL for critical data.


Crystal Code at Birger Jarlsgatan in Stockholm has begun working with smart apps over RAKEL

With RAKEL, a Swedish radio system based on TETRA technology, public safety entities to use voice, text messaging and data services. There are many vital public authorities that have signed up to RAKEL and because Rachel is shared between different authorities and emergency services as it provides great opportunities for cooperation between the organizations.

RAKEL is unfortunately limited by a very low transmission rate for data services and it is therefore not a good idea to send large images and movies or synchronize large amounts of data over the system as a user then takes claim to all the capacity in his cell. For this reason, many authorities are considering the use of standard mobile phones instead of joining the public safety net.

RAKEL, however the user a number of extremely important advantages when compared to conventional telephony, including:
- Base stations are backed up with generators and therefore resistant to extended power outage
- Coverage of RAKEL is superior to GSM, GPRS and 3G
- Multi-party calls via RAPE-groups
- The traffic priority and important traffic has precedence
- Strong encryption to prevent eavesdropping
- If work must be done for example in a tunnel where there are insufficient funds, a basic TETRA radio used as a base to increase the coverage area.

At Crystal Code, we thought you might want to use a hybrid solution between a traditional mobile solutions and Tetra radios. This way you can synchronize large amounts of data over the mobile network and send critical status updates and alarms over RAKEL network. This can be done if the user connects a radio to his smartphone. This gives you the best of both worlds and also the opportunity to use advanced smartphones based on Android and iOS example. You will be able to deliver a quality user experience that really makes life easier for RAKEL-users and without the way having to overload the network. While retaining the important features of RAKEL for critical data.

We have developed a proof of concept where we have paired an iPhone, an iPad and a rugged Android device, each with its TETRA radio from Sepura (STP 8000). The units we have for the sake of simplicity, coupled with an ordinary serial cable which could be a good solution for example vehicle mount. The communication is also possible to solve with Bluetooth and ZigBee, for example if you want to avoid the cable.

"I think one of the major benefits of the technology we have developed is that RAKEL would be easier to use for more advanced applications. In order to have some type of automatic operation in for example a case management system, the user would have to key in special formatted text message on a radio that have no real keyboard. With our solution, we can provide a useful graphical interface that is intuitive. "
- Says Jens Olsson who has worked to develop a proof of concept.

We have published a video on YouTube where we show how the concept works on an Android device and an iPhone / iPad.
In our proof of concept, we show how to distribute the different areas on a map to a polling teams who may be looking for a missing person or searching a crime scene. The possibilities of this technology is limited of course not to this particular example, but are very large.