CRITICAL COMMUNICATIONS CASE STUDY

CASE STUDY
VIRVE TETRA AS KEY ENABLER TO
TRANSFORMATION FROM SEPARATE
AGENCIES TO JOINT OPERATIONS
Janne Koivukoski, deputy director
general, Ministry of the Interior Rescue
Services for Finland
“
Our ambition was to
achieve better radio
communication systems
using the same budget we
already had.
Without going back in the history to tell the
whole story of our Finnish TETRA-project, we
had big troubles trying to solve all our
communication problems at the beginning of
90s. At the same time there was also a need
to get better integration between different
emergency call authorities. There were
parallel projects to solve both problems.
Now we have been running the TETRA radio
network over 18 years and it has been
countrywide since 2002. With that TETRA
radio network and our emergency response
centers we have saved a lot of money and
lives. I cannot see any other project which
has been so beneficial to our safety and
security in Finland.
A NEED FOR INTERGRATION
To get better co-operation and faster
response time between units which were
working on the field there needed to be better
integration between different emergency call
centres too.
The first problem was to find a solution to
getting new radio communication systems to
replace earlier analogue radio systems in
Finland. Our ambition was to achieve better
radio communication systems using the
same budget we already had. The second
problem was a need to build a totally
integrated emergency response system to
cater for all authorities.
During the planning phase, we already had a
pilot centre where we recognised that we
could achieve the best quality and fastest
operation by using the same operator for
different authorities. We also developed a
unique training programme for the
emergency centre operators.
OVERCOMING CHALLENGES
The biggest challenge at the beginning was
to get common understanding of the target.
Every authority thought that they had their
own needs and specifications which were
impossible to fit together. It took several years
to reach the consensus and some people
needed to retire during the process to achieve
it. Of course, limited financial resources were
also a big challenge for us. But there we could
convince political leaders at that time so well
that we got the money. The third challenge
for us was that there was no standard
solution for us and we were the first in the
world to do this.
A SUITE OF BENEFITS
The benefits for us were that we could, as
forerunners, lead the path to success and
organise the systems suit our needs.
Additional benefits were those we had set for
ourselves: a new digital shared radio network
for all authorities which has enabled our
integrated emergency response system and
enhanced our communications ability.
If we had built several radio networks the
costs would have been much higher than our
solution to use the same network for all. Also
to get the same benefits which we can
achieve via integrated network (common
talking groups), we would have needed to
have more investment.
If we take the police as an example user
group, the new system was cheaper to use as
their earlier networks were there. For some
local users the user fees were more
expensive than the old ones, but they got new
co-operation possibilities with other
authorities.