Mission Critical Implementations tested during the fourth ETSI MCX Plugtests

Sophia Antipolis, 30 September 2019

The 4th ETSI MCX PlugtestsTM have concluded with a success rate of 95% of the executed tests in the validation of 3GPP mission critical services vendor interoperability.

These tests are essential to ensure seamless access to mission critical services over 4G networks across different vendors’ products and implementations.

The MCX (collectively for MCPTT, MCVideo and MCData services) ETSI Plugtests series is the first independent testing of public safety and other mission critical LTE. The preparations for the fourth Plugtests started in April 2019, were followed by remote testing over the summer and were finalized with a five-day face-to-face session, held at the end of September in Kuopio, Finland at the Savonia University of Applied Sciences. MCX Plugtests News 2019 800x550

The tests were based on 3GPP Release-14 and more than 1 800 tests were executed between the different vendors in more than 210 test sessions. They will be officially part of a future version of ETSI TS 103 564 after the ETSI committee TCCE approval. Besides the MCPTT, MCData and MCVideo Application Servers and Clients, the testing also included devices (UEs), LTE networks with eNBs, EPC (Evolved Packet Core), IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) and eMBMS (Evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Services) components and testing of Floor Control, Affiliation, Mission Critical Bearers handling, Multicast, and Server to Server communication.

The observations from the Plugtests events provide essential feedback to 3GPP Working Groups as work continues on mission critical communication specifications.

This fourth MCX Plugtests was organized by ETSI in partnership with Erillisverkot (State Security Networks Group Finland) with the support of TCCA and the European Commission.

ETSI has started to organize the 5th MCX Plugtests and is discussing venues and dates with potential hosts.

The list of participants included:

Vendors:

AINA Wireless; Airbus DS SLC; Alea s.r.l.; Armour Communications Ltd; Athonet S.r.l.; Bittium; Ecom Instruments GmbH (part of Pepperl+Fuchs); Enensys-Expway; Ericsson; ETELM; Frequentis; Funkwerk Systems GmbH; Genaker; Havelsan A.Ş.; Huawei Technologies; Indian Institute of Technology Bombay; Kontron Transportation (formerly Kapsch CarrierCom); L3Harris Technologies Inc. (formerly Harris Corporation); Leonardo; MCOP-University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU); Motorola Solutions; Nemergent Solutions SL; ng-voice GmbH; one2many B.V.; Polaris Networks; PRESCOM; SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS; Softil Ltd; StreamWide; TASSTA GmbH; valid8.com.

Observers:

A.S.T.R.I.D. S.A.; Erillisverkot; French Ministry of Interior; Global Certification Forum (GCF); NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology); Pelastusopisto – Emergency Services Academy Finland; Savonia University of Applied Sciences; SMIT - IT and Development Centre. Ministry of the Interior, Estonia; TCCA; The National Police of the Netherlands; The Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection (DSB).