Norwegian Public Safety Network is Now Complete
The vision of Nødnett is to establish a single network for all public safety agencies in the country to communicate with each other and exchange information easily.
Nødnett is a digital network for police, fire and rescue and health services. Its key characteristics are its resilience and the ability to talk to groups within the agencies and other emergency services groups.
Additionally, users with TETRA radios can send and receive text messages and exchange small amounts of data. The project has now been completed on time.
On December 1, the official opening of the nationwide Nødnett network was celebrated in Kirkenes (Østfinnmark) in the presence of His Majesty King Harald V of Norway, the Minister of Justice and Public Security Anders Anundsen and many other key parties involved in the project.
“I was involved in this project for the past seven years and I am very impressed with the achievements of the team during this challenging time,” says Hermann Mattanovich, chief technical officer at Frequentis. “We appreciate the excellent collaboration with DNK and are honoured to provide our Control Room experience and expertise for this outstanding project.”
Frequentis, as a partner of the prime contractor, Motorola Solutions, was a key contributor to this project and delivered about 800 control center operator positions based on the ICCS (Integrated Communication and Control System) 3020.
Control Centers equipped by Frequentis
Frequentis’ ICCS 3020 is available at each operator position to manage all communications related to incoming emergency calls. With a user-friendly graphical user interface, the operator can easily switch between internal and external radio communications with officers in the field and manage all of the groups Nødnett provides to coordinate required emergency responses.
Advantages provided by the Nødnett network include having all voice communications provided with digital audio quality, secure encryption and the quality radio coverage provided even in rural areas and cross-agency communication in one network.
“This public safety solution is one of the largest in all of Europe. Nødnett is designed to fulfil the special needs of Norwegian public safety agencies. This is a great milestone in making Norway safer,” says Robert Nitsch, director public safety of Frequentis.
The Nødnett Control Center Roll-out
The nationwide deployment of control centers was planned from south to north across six geographical regions. The southernmost control center is based in Mandal (Vest-Agder) and the northernmost in Svalbard (Spitzbergen).
Key achievements from the nationwide TETRA system:
- 800 control center operator positions
- Cross-agency communication between 37 police control centers, 23 fire and rescue control centers and 184 health control centers
- About 1,500,000 radio calls per month
- Almost 35,000 daily radio users
- About 2,100 integrated base stations.
