Test measurements considerations for LTE as future public safety communication technology

Being that current Professional Mobile Radio systems, such as TETRA, APCO25 or DMR suffer from slow data transfer, LTE technology is taking its place as the choice for future public safety broadband communication system. Declared performance in terms of capacity, reliability and security is enough to fulfill the strict requirements of the public safety users. Quality of Service concept in LTE, with Allocation and Retention Priority, Quality Class Identifier, Traffic Flow Templates with addition of access classes is the solid ground for deployment of LTE as the solution for public safety broadband data transfer. LTE is expected to continue to be the choice for public safety data transfer, and the future solution for voice communication as well. Main considerations for test measurements of future public safety LTE networks should include coverage, Quality of Service, call setup time, speech and data quality analysis and channel quality.