The ACCF granted observer status in the 5th MCX Plugtests event

The Australasian Critical Communications Forum (ACCF), chapter of TCCA, has been granted observer status in the fifth MCX Plugtests™ event that will provide vital information on the progress of Mission Critical Broadband and Mission Critical services development and testing against 3GPP MC open standards. ACCF Director, Kevin Graham, will represent ACCF in this observer role.

The event is organised by ETSI with the support of the European Commission (EU), European Free Trade Association (EFTA), The Critical Communications Association (TCCA) and the International Union of Railways (UIC). The fifth MCX Plugtests event will take place as a remote-only event from 21st September to 2nd October 2020.

https://www.etsi.org/events/1758-5th-mcx-remote-plugtests

The focus of the observer program will be to examine the challenges of the Mission Critical Services deployment and will provide the platform to the various stake holders in Mission critical community to discuss the progress of Broadband and Mission Critical services deployment.

WHAT ARE THE OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE OF THE PLUGTESTS EVENT?

The concept of “Mission Critical Push To Talk” (MCPTT), “Mission Critical Data (MCData)” and “Mission Critical Video (MCVideo)” started with 3GPP Release-13 and is ongoing in current Releases.
Interoperability and Mission Critical service harmonization are critical challenges for the successful deployment and operation of Mission Critical Communication.

The goal of the MCX Plugtests event is to validate the interoperability of a variety of implementations using different test scenarios based on 3GPP Mission Critical Services in Release-15. The MCX Plugtests event will, besides mission critical features which have been tested in past MCX Plugtests, be extended to initially test railways-oriented capabilities in 3GPP Release-15, a step towards new FRMCS (Future Railway Mobile Communication System).

The tests are based on 3GPP, ETSI and IETF standards and the purpose and scope of the MCX Plugtests event are to test independently and jointly all components of the MC communication chain. The test cases are available in ETSI TS 103 564 and are designed for the following equipment: MCS Application Servers (MCPTT, MCDATA, MCVIDEO), MCS Clients (MCPTT, MCDATA, MCVIDEO), eMBMS Components, IMS / SIP Cores, Railways Communications Systems, Consoles and Control Rooms, MCS Test Equipments.

The test cases are available in ETSI TS 103 564.b. This fifth MCX Plugtests event will focus on Over-The-Top (OTT) tests via VPN connections from the vendor labs, following the approach used during the pre-test stages in previous MCX Plugtests events and in the remote MCX#3 Plugtests event.

Other mission critical industry stakeholders in our region are encouraged to consider participating in future Plugtests events through the formal ETSI registration channels or via membership of ACCF/TCCA. Please contact ACCF for further details. admin@criticalcommsforum.com.au

Beyond its association with ETSI and 3GPP, TCCA and its working groups are also supporting other complementary mission critical standardization initiatives such as the Global Certification Forum (Mission Critical Agreement Group), the University of Basque Country (Mission Critical Testing as a Service) and further enhancements to the TETRA standards.

Australasian Critical Communications Forum (ACCF) www.criticalcommsforum.com.au