Etherstack awarded second Swedish TETRA SDR contract

7th April 2008 – Etherstack today announced that they had won a new contract with FMV (Swedish Defence materiel Administration). Under a previous contract, Etherstack supplied an SCA variant of their standard TETRA Mobile Station protocol stack and technical engineering services to FMV for a joint project between FMV and the US Department of Defense related to the US Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) programme. Etherstack successfully extended and then ported part of their TETRA Mobile Station stack to a government supplied software defined radio (SDR) platform which was compliant to the JTRSSCA, or Software Communications Architecture.

The project then successfully demonstrated correct TETRA TMO calls between the SDR platform and a widely deployed 3rdparty TETRA network base station in Sweden. The Etherstack TETRA Mobile Station protocol stack, known as a “waveform” in military parlance, was Etherstack’s standard commercial protocol stack product that has been used widely in the past 8 years in industry, but modified slightly for SDR and SCA operation.

The new contract involves further technology and services from Etherstack related to the next phase of the TETRA and SDR evolution within the Swedish Armed Forces. A possible technology outcome of this project would be the ability for European military personnel to communicate with civilian emergency services and security personnel in the event of a national emergency, with their standard military SDR platforms running the Etherstack TETRA waveform. The SCA can be considered as similar to an open standard for a radio platform, allowing wireless protocol stack developers, such as Etherstack, to develop air interface signaling software (waveforms) that can run on multiple radio manufacturers’ equipment that support the SCA.

In the future, this will allow a single radio device such as a handheld to host multiple waveforms and then be able to communicate with different radio networks such as GSM, UMTS, TETRA and APCO P25 as the need arises. Etherstack’s Managing Director, David Deacon commented ‘Sweden and FMV are at the forefront of SDR research and practical application of the technology. We have been honored to be working with such a professional team, and proud of the live TETRA demonstrations on standard 3rdparty network infrastructure. This clearly demonstrates that SDR is coming of age and that robust portable proven software stacks and waveforms are key to this success. Around the world right now governments and industry are pushing SDR programmes that utilise the civilian public safety waveforms (TETRA and APCO P25). This will have significant impact on improving interoperability between emergency services and national defence organisations’.

Etherstack had previously ported their APCO P25 waveform to US defense manufacturers’ platforms. The company is currently working on WiMAX, TEDS and UMTS waveform implementations.

For further information please contact:

Kevin Swann
Business Development Director
Kevin.swann@etherstack.com
Phone: +44 207 734 0200

Jenna Murray
Office Manager
Jenna.murray@etherstack.com
Phone: +44 207 734 0200