Report on TETRA Technology in 5 Questions Essay

Report on TETRA Technology in 5 Questions - Essay Example (Dunlop, Girma and Irvine, 1999; ET Industries, n.d.) â€Å"TETRA offers the automatic operation and frequency efficiency of trunking combined with the terminal autonomy of a conventional PMR1. TETRA has a multi-mode capability by combining these two modes, trunking and direct (conventional), into a single terminal equipment, and it also provides the standardised way of inter-working between these two modes.† (Net Resources International, 2011) TETRA is thus designed to provide bandwidth-on-demand by which a variable quantity of bandwidth can be allocated for the call duration as per the application conditions set. TETRA functions through reference points and functional configurations, and flexibility of standards is maintained inside the network environment. (Dunlop, Girma and Irvine, 1999) TETRA has wide spectrum utilities and it is perhaps best suited to establish critical mobile radio networks capable to handle emergencies. Who use it and why is it used? The technical spec ifications provided by TETRA are actually guided by a comprehensive set of end user necessities. As a result â€Å"most of the potential user groups of this network technology have been identified from the inception of the standard. Communication features such as group call, Direct Mode Operation, and numerous emergency-oriented supplementary services are all driven by end user demands during the standardisation process.† (Dunlop, Girma and Irvine, 1999) In such a state of affair, TETRA has scope for both the individual users and a wide variety of user groups. TETRA user groups are described below: Table – 1: TETRA User Groups Source: Dunlop, Girma and Irvine, 1999, p. 162 Inclusion of so many user groups in the TETRA networking realm proves that TETRA is extremely useful, flexible and dynamic. The main reason of popularity and diverse usability of TETRA is its multiple application support. â€Å"TETRA supports point-to-point and point-to-multipoint communications bot h through the TETRA infrastructure and by use of direct mode without infrastructure.† (Net Resources International, 2011) To this extent TETRA can use applications like Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) too. For non-voice applications, the major application types of TETRA are video and multimedia application and data-oriented application. Moreover, it is interoperable with GSM, CDMA, UMTS, etc. network architectures. (Plans, Paradells and Gomez, 2006) What are the TETRA components systems? â€Å"Most system descriptions are based on a conceptual representation of functional configurations and reference points, which is a widely adopted methodology of describing the interconnections of components within a network system.† (Dunlop, Girma and Irvine, 1999, p. 161) Using this approach, it becomes essential to understand the interfaces in the TETRA standard. These interfaces through which TETRA components systems inter-communicate are described below: Figure – 1: In terfaces in the TETRA Standard Source: Bekkers, 2001, p. 382 Moreover, the standards for TETRA are related only with the peripheral environment of a TETRA system, referred to in the standardisation guide as Switching and Management Infrastructure (SwMI). Figure – 2: Functional Network Configuration of a TETRA SwMI Dunlop, Girma and Irvine, 1999, p. 164 With the help of the above network configuration diagram, we can find out six principle TETRA