DX Technology beyond Horizon: Public Safety Network

The online technology forum is prepared and conducted by Radio engineering

circle on June 2020, wherein the speaker was Engr. John Mervin L. La Rosa. The
seminar covers topic related to Public safety network including its application,
comparison to commercial network and the current status of public safety network
in the Philippines. This event emphasizes the importance of public safety network in
times of disasters and accidents such as earthquake, fire, volcanic eruption and
recently the corona virus. This event can be an eye opener for the government in
order to improve the current public safety network system in order to immediately
respond timely in any kind of incidents.

As said by the speaker, in order to ensure the safety of the community the
response team including medical response, fire emergency response, security
response, accident response team must act quickly and real time in order to avoid
huge damage to properties in cases of natural disaster occurrence and prevent
casualties. With our current scenario, the people starts to questions the capability of
our response team to stop the spreading of the virus due to increasing number of
cases and this have high impact on our country. We all hope that after this crisis
response team becomes better.

The seminar also discussed the comparison in terms of application between

public safety network and commercial network. Public safety network is commonly
used by the government agencies while the commercial is being used by the private
paying subscribers. The speaker states that reason of the government for providing
the ideal public safety network and that is availability and resiliency. Availability in
order to communicate anywhere without experiencing disconnection or delay. It
applies why during storms and other disasters, the rescuers have the means of
communicating with others. Resiliency because it should be activated during critical
times and able to transmit even though experiencing worst possible scenario. In
addition to that other characteristics of Public safety network is its wide coverage
and more secured compare to the commercial network.

The seminar also discussed the recent and the upcoming update for the public safety
networks in equipment of Philippine National Police and Bureau Of Fire Protection
(BFP). He emphasis the upcoming upgrade in the radio used by the Philippine Nation
Police (PNP) from the old model of Analog VHF/UHF communication since 1995 to
digitalization which is launched last September 2019 and adapted DMR Tier 3. Faster
communication and more secured since Analog VHF is using free licensing.While the
BFP has already acquired digitalization as early as 2017.
Aside from discussing the current Public safety network in the Philippines, as an
engineer the speaker gave his insights on how to improve the Public safety network
on the current. He suggest using Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) which is very
suitable due to its characteristic that during a voice call, the communication cannot
be interrupted even moving from one site to another. Also comes from much lower
frequency and gives longer range of transmission.