1. Finnish TETRA PPDR Authority Radio Network VIRVE
WG FM civil-military meeting
Peteveikko Lyly

2. VIRVE network

3. Key facts of the group (VIRVE ~1/3)
300 94 84
300
Employees
Employees
Offices across Finland
Annual turnover (MEUR) in 2015
Offices across Finland
Estimated annual turnover (MEUR) in 2015

4. Services Data centres Virve Turvallisuusverkko IP-services Terminals
Colocation services Capacity services
Data communications
Virve Turvallisuusverkko IP-services Terminals
Situational awareness Krivat
Johtotieto
A unique range of ICT solutions for authorities and critical infrastructure enterprises – for those who do not settle for the ordinary.

5. VIRVE users are a restricted user group
Ministry of Transport and Communication approves new user groups
Price of the VIRVE service is heavily subsidized. Necessary to minimise influence to competition of public mobile phone operators.
Both positive and negative decisions of applications
Multivendor thanks to open standard and interoperability work

7. Frequencies of VIRVE TMO Frequency range DMO frequencies
380, ,9875 MHz for TMO
DMO frequencies
10 DMO frequencies
40 additional DMO frequencies / MHz
Few will be changed from DMO to TMO
Coordination of the usage with neighboring countries
50/50 principle
Certain power level permitted
Some frequency shortage in capital area, significant part of the frequencies can be used only partially due to agreement with southern neighbor country Estonia

8. Continuous re-investments

9. VIRVE is joint and the only network of all public safety authorities

10. Multi-channel router for improved reliability of mobile broadband

11. Current GSM-R will be replaced with VIRVE (TETRA)
Very few new base stations
Big savings
Waiting for LTE

12. VIRVE transition from TETRA to LTE (4G, 5G etc) takes >10 years until complete

13. The Finnish Defense Forces is an active VIRVE-user
Several thousands of terminals, about 15% of all VIRVE subscribers.
Daily use is related to field exercises, Military Police, Fire and Rescue as well as authority co-operation
Roughly 25% of the radio terminals are active on a daily basis
Occasional usage when larger groups have exercises
Several thousands of terminals, regular (quarterly) usage.
Also fixed workstations and mobile data terminals with positioning and task management application across the whole country
DMO channel(s)
In addition to the nation wide VIRVE, Defense Force has deployable TETRA network ( MHz area), which is used by the battalion on wheels.
Deployable TETRA system is connected to VIRVE so user will be able to talk with ERC-center (112)

14. LTE has numerous teething issues e.g. DMO
LTE Proximity services
Very short range compared to TETRA
In practice < 500 meters direct-trial-white-paper.pdf
Wifi-LTE routers will reduce the problem
TETRA DMO connection when LOS >5km
Some users are still using VHF radios bought before VIRVE
Used especially in DMO
Mission Critical PTT over LTE will probably work, however infrastructure coverage will remain an issue
Conclusion
Usage of TETRA frequencies will continue at least until 2030 in Finland, even beyond 2035
No decisions concerning future use of the frequencies after TETRA