Friday fragments - comms news from around the web for 8 November 2013

A weekly round-up of critical communications and public safety radio news for Friday, 8 November 2013.

TETRA takes on the Super Bowl. Spectators travelling to the 2014 Super Bowl, to be held in February, will benefit from a new 800 MHz TETRA system being installed on public transport infrastructure operated by New Jersey Transit. Supplied by PowerTrunk, the system will comprise more than 4000 subscriber radios, plus base stations and core infrastructure. NJ Transit is the third-largest transit system in the USA, with 164 rail stations, 61 light rail stations and more than 19,000 bus stops linking major points in New Jersey, New York and Philadelphia.

P25 for Toronto airport. The Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) has activated a Cassidian-supplied P25 trunked LMR system at Toronto Pearson International Airport. The system will enable the airport's fire, safety, security, aviation services, guest terminal services, buildings and maintenance, and airside maintenance personnel to communicate with each other. Fleetcom was the prime contractor.

900 MHz interference in NZ. New Zealand's Radio Spectrum Management (RSM) authority says that 900 MHz paging devices designed for the US market are causing interference to mobile phone providers. The pagers were being used by a retirement village to provide emergency calls, but by interfering with a nearby cell site emergency mobile calls might have been put in jeopardy.

TETRA data to keep highways safe. Analysis of voice calls made by UK Highways Agency operators has led to a decision to replace some such calls with TETRA data messages instead. The study showed that many non-urgent voice messages - such as 'on patrol' and 'arrived at scene' - can be replaced with short data service messages. Early examination of the results has already shown savings in the region of 30 to 40% in traffic unit volumes