Sophia Antipolis, France, 17 July 2026
ETSI has published the final report from its 10th Mission Critical Services (MCX) Plugtests™, announcing a 92% interoperability success rate of the executed tests in the validation of 3GPP mission critical services vendor interoperability, confirming the growing maturity of mission-critical communications over 4G and 5G networks.
Held from 18 to 22 May 2026, the event was the largest MCX Plugtests to date, bringing together more than 240 participants from around the world. Organised by ETSI with the support of TCCA and UIC, and co-funded by the European Union and EFTA, the programme remains the first independent interoperability testing initiative for mission-critical services over broadband networks.
The event focused on testing standardised 3GPP Mission Critical Push-to-Talk (MCPTT), Mission Critical Data (MCData) and Mission Critical Video (MCVideo) services. Participants executed 356 tests across 112 test sessions.
The results are significant for public safety and emergency services, where reliable communications between different agencies and technologies are essential. A high interoperability rate helps ensure that police, firefighters, emergency medical services and civil protection teams can exchange voice, data and video seamlessly during critical incidents.
Testing also help accelerate deployment of 4G and 5G networks to support operational mission-critical services, while validating interoperability with existing ETSI TETRA-based systems. This enables agencies to modernise their communications while maintaining compatibility with current networks.
The event also featured an observer programme involving 13 organisations representing public safety agencies, regulators, standards bodies and industry stakeholders from Europe and the United States.
Feedback generated during the event will be submitted to relevant 3GPP Working Groups and will contribute to future updates of ETSI TS 103 564. The ETSI specification now contains a total of 466 test cases, covering increasingly complex multi-vendor and conformance scenarios.
Read the full ETSI Plugtests Report here: https://portal.etsi.org/Portals/0/TBpages/CTI/Docs/10th_ETSI_MCX_Plugtests_Report_V100.pdf
