Softil has released its annual outlook for the mission-critical communications (MCX) industry in 2025.
“The MCX industry has already built significant momentum, and this will accelerate in 2025 with significant players using our open standards and fully interoperable MCX enabling technologies,” said Pierre Hagendorf, CEO, Softil. “The industry will continue to use the life-changing technology to broaden its outreach in public safety agencies and extend its functionality and usage in MCX and FRMCS deployments.”
The outlook includes:
MCX adoption accelerates
MCX has built a substantial market presence with prime examples being the live services in North America and in South Korea. The UK Home Office is about to announce a new ESN MCX vendor, and in Germany BDBOS is spearheading further development of MCX technologies thanks to grant allocations.
In France, broadband mission-critical communications played a vital role during the Paris Olympics 2024, enabling first responders to rely on the power of MCX, delivered as a part of nationwide rollout of broadband public safety network RRF by ACMOSS.
MCX in utilities on the rise
Utility companies are expected to advance into MCX over LTE and 5G, due to the maturity and availability of the technology, utilities typically owning their spectrum or licensing it, and being agile enough to deploy technology at pace.
A multitude of new MCX service offerings is expected in 2025.
MCVideo advancing
MCVideo first appeared in 3GPP release 14 and now Release 19 is almost finished. Video holds tremendous value at the same time it is bandwidth-hungry, so networks should be up to the task to properly support it.
With 5G standalone and 5G Advanced, we are finally getting where we need to be. Given ample bandwidth, video will become the king of communications. The proliferation of video sources – street cameras, bodycams, CCTV, traffic cameras, drones and even satellites – should also be taken into account.
Drones and robotics advancements significant
Drones are now capable of staying in the air for much longer, remain connected, send over real-time video and sensor data and operate instruments. ‘Drone as a First Responder’ is not just a catchphrase – especially with the addition of AI and analytic capabilities – a drone can use the full power of MCX and be a full member of the emergency response team. Robotic capabilities are enjoying the same pace of advancement as drones, and there will be more of them in the coming years.
Satellites/NTN to connect the unconnected
As the world relies increasingly upon mobile networks to be available anytime anywhere, satellites (or non-terrestrial networks, NTN) are a part of this ubiquitous coverage. A number of factors are already in play.
Firstly, the sheer quantity of satellites already in orbit, both LEO and geostationary, is already substantial and increasing by the minute. Satellite technological advancements are not yet capable of the transmission of 4k video in real time but are good enough for powering reliable voice and data and supporting secure location services. Satellite communications will become more impactful as 5G NTN aspects of standards get better developed and networks shift towards 5G SA.
MCX direct mode getting closer
Broadband group communications will never be solved unless direct mode communications or, direct to device (D2D) communications is in place.
For public safety, emergency response, utilities and transportation applications, there will always be instances when a network is not available, or the use of a network is undesirable. To address this, 5G-Sidelink, and the implementation of MCX direct mode based on interoperable Softil enabled technology are viable solutions.
Commercially available 5G-Sidelink capabilities in chipsets are expected to be available within the next two years, and for 5G-Sidelink enabled devices to follow suit.
AI and MCX
AI can be applied starting at the network level and integrated with OpenRAN to enable optimised access and traffic prioritisation for first responders.
AI can also play a larger role in dispatch and event operations. For example, in a given fire response situation, AI can analyse potential scenarios of the fire spread depending on weather, materials involved and structures. AI can make suggestions in emergency medical care scenarios until a doctor is reached. It can also assist in possible suspect pursuits, predicting possible moves.
All of these possible use cases are within a millionth of the percentage of the actual AI capabilities. As a result, lots of exciting use cases are expected to happen this year.
TAK and MCX
Situational awareness is a critical capability for first responders. TAK/ATAK/CivTAK technology stemming from DoD work might be the best situational awareness tool available for first responders.
TAK can assemble all situational awareness data in real time with or without a network and make it continuously available to first responders on any Android or iOS device. By adding communication capability to the wealth of TAK’s situational awareness data, first responders will have the same MCX broadband capabilities – MCPTT, MCVideo and MCData. Currently, TAK and MCX live apart in their own parallel worlds – but this should start changing in 2025 and first integrations should begin to appear.
FRMCS momentum to continue growing
FRMCS (Future Railway Mobile Communication System) is all about trains and is inevitable as aging GSM-R needs to be replaced. The FRMCS project has the full attention of the European Union as a whole, so the project can go only one way – forward.
FRMCS is relying on MCX as its core layer, so all advances of FRMCS push MCX technology forward. Accounting for slight delays, FRMCS version 2.0 has completed enough for the testing project called MORANE-2 to start in 2025 and advance to version 3, becoming the first deployable edition.
MCX certification
Devices that are deployed in a public safety network have to be performing as advertised. GCF MCX device certification arrived in 2024 with the first certified solutions now available with first mission-critical operators joining GCF to take part in MCX certification work. More MCX certified solutions will appear in 2025 and beyond.
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