State Secretary Atle Hamar

11 Nations Meeting

7 - 8 September

Welcome to Norway and Oslo!

It is a pleasure for me on behalf of the Norwegian Ministry of Justice to welcome you all to this 11 Nations meeting on public safety communication. The 11 Nations group was initiated in an effort to introduce digital police mobile radio systems, with a small number of countries participating. This co-operation is now totalling 11 nations. Norway has been participating since the last three meetings. In Norway, an initiative has been taken to form a similar multilateral group for co-operation within the health services. Its first meeting will be held in conjunction with this meeting.

The two-day meeting is organised as two separate units. This first day of the meeting is an open seminar where we will present the Norwegian TETRA Project. The second day is a closed session for the participating parties of the 11 nations group.

The Norwegian Tetra project is organised through the Norwegian Department of Justice. The project consists of representatives from several other departments. In our opinion a sufficient telecommunications system for the emergency and rescue services is of great importance. The situation in Norway, as in many other countries, is that during the last 30 years the police, fire and health services have developed separate radio networks, independent of one another. These networks are now old and insufficient an in need of replacement with new systems. The recent developments in digital technology give us a unique opportunity to invest in a shared, highly sophisticated digital system, for all the public safety services.

With these realities in mind a Norwegian preliminary study was carried out during 1995-96. The main conclusions from this study were as follows:

• The old analogue radio networks can no longer fulfil the requirements from the emergency services
• A gradual upgrade of the old systems to meet the new requirements is not possible.
• The question is not if the old radio systems shall be replaced, rather how it can be done and at what cost.
• The emergency services; health, fire and police have common interest in establishing one, shared, network for public safety
• The cellular phone systems (GSM) cannot meet important user requirements.
• The new radio network shall be based on the European TETRA standard.

After the preliminary study in 1995-96 we have now started a study concerning all aspects on introduction of a new radio system for the emergency services. This raise some main questions:

Why should the Emergency services now join forces?

• By joining forces it will be possible to finance an advanced, nation-wide, radio network.
• A common system can be realised.

Why should the TETRA Mobile Radio system be chosen?

• The TETRA standard will provide voice- as well as data communication.
• User friendliness will be improved.
• A high quality, secure mobile communication system is achieved, with a high level of resilience. It must also be impossible to listen in for unauthorised personnel.
• The increased functionality will improve the efficiency in the public safety sector.
• The co-operation between the different public safety services may be greatly improved by introducing a system where co-operation is «built-in».
• The Emergency Services can communicate without being dependant on traffic load in public networks
• Requirements according to the Schengen agreement will be met.

And why should the Government invest in, and promote, a shared TETRA Mobile Radio system?

• The investment in radio systems for public safety will be reduced in a common solution.
• Similarly the operational costs will be reduced.
• Nation wide radio coverage can be ensured. This will make it possible to utilise the radio services everywhere at a reasonable cost.
• A commitment from the government in promoting a single communications platform for all applications will increase the IT-industry’s interest in the public safety sector as a market.
• To prevent uncontrolled and expensive use of cellular phones.

Contrary to what you may think after these statements, no definite decisions have yet been made on the future for emergency services mobile radio systems. A feasibility study is now under way to present all the aspects of such an undertaking. The result of this study will be presented to the Parliament, which in turn, hopefully, will decide that a TETRA system shall be built.

I hope that these two days will prove informative, interesting and useful for all participants.