Industry/Information technology: TÜV NORD Group Ensures Quality Of Police Radio

Jan. 7, 2011 - PRLog -- Here, TÜV NORD Group is tasked with ensuring that all the rules and regulations of the federal state - and also of Baden Württemberg itself  - are fulfilled with regard to the infrastructure of the individual locations. A further aspect is, for example, checking the stability of masts. Baden-Württemberg is one of the states engaged in developing a BOS radio network - and as Chief Commissioner of Police Dr. Wolf Hammann emphasised on 14. July during a press conference in Göppingen.  "It is already clear that besides prevention of eavesdropping, above all the excellent quality of speech transmission and blanket reception coverage are two fundamental benefits of digital radio communication".

"We are delighted to be able to support this project", says Dirk Giesing from the company TÜV NORD Systems, which has been involved in the security of radio network locations for eight years. "Based on our work, Baden-Württemberg is in a position to demonstrate to the federal state that it complies with the necessary standards."

Processes and locations are inspected and certified
The work of TÜV NORD Group covers two main areas: On the one hand the processes, and on the other the locations, are inspected and certified.

During process certification it is established if all the specifications of the Federal Agency for Digital Radio of Security Authorities and Organisations (BDBOS) are fulfilled, along with the standards specific to the individual state or region. These specifications must also be considered during the inspections of the individual locations. In addition, it is ensured that any changes to the BDBOS specifications are reflected in operational inspection and testing. A test report from TÜViT is drawn up, and if the findings are positive, the process concludes with the TÜViT Trusted Process certificate. Besides the specifications of BDBOS and those of the individual region or state, the 83 general criteria of the standard that are based on ISO 9001:2005 must be fulfilled.

Certification of individual locations, on the other hand, is carried out by TÜV NORD Systems. Here, the process description is developed along with the client and is adapted to the requirements of the process certification. The objective is to evaluate all locations in a standardised and transparent way. The evaluations include so-called quality-assurance site visits and also inspection of the documentation relating to the site.

In the course of these quality assurance visits, teams from TÜV NORD Systems check the infrastructure at transmission locations to identify and document if connection performance corresponds to current specifications. Such visits are made to locations selected on a random sample basis. A certificate is issued for each successful inspection, which documents that an additional quality inspection has been performed with regard to the planning and implementation standards of the state of Baden-Württemberg.

"This multi-level and complex procedure provides the certainty that all the locations in Baden-Württemberg are uniformly equipped for all their future tasks, and that they comply with criteria whose fulfilment can be precisely evaluated", says Dirk Giesing.  

Digital radio is replacing obsolete technology
The digital radio network is intended to replace existing analogue radio networks at the end of 2012. The analogue networks originate from the 1950s, are technically obsolete and subject to problems and disturbance, and are therefore no longer able to fulfil the growing requirements of police, fire brigade and rescue services - and are reaching the limits of their capacity. It is no longer possible to take advantage of the technical opportunities offered by current forms of mobile communications with the old analogue radio system. A further factor is that manufacturers are allowing production and development of analogue radio technology to run down, making maintenance of existing equipment more difficult and more expensive.  

The new BOS radio will bring together the three existing radio networks for police, fire service and rescue services into one network. This leads to optimum use of resources.
The digital radio network is being established throughout the whole of Germany with close cooperation between the federal state and individual regions. This is controlled centrally by BDBOS, while the individual regions, such as Baden-Württemberg, are responsible for provision of the radio locations and the connection network.  In total, around 4,500 base stations are required nationally – which means that the largest communication network of this kind and quality in the world is being created in Germany based on terrestrial trunked radio, a  bundled radio system that was developed in 1995 by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, ETSI.

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About the TÜV NORD Group
With over 10,000 employees TÜV NORD Group is one of the largest technical service providers in Germany. It also operates in over 70 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The Group owes its leading market position to its technical competence and a broad range of advisory, service, and testing services in the Mobility, Industrial Services, International, Natural Resources and Training and Human Resources fields. TÜV NORD Group is firmly committed to its guiding principle and watchword: "Making our world safer".
www.tuv-nord.com