Friday fragments — critical comms snippets from 15 April

A round-up of the week's critical communications and public safety radio news for Friday, 15 April 2016.

Ongoing investigations for Brussels terror attacks. Emergency services in Brussels were forced to use WhatsApp Messenger when communication systems were overwhelmed with traffic after the suicide bomb attacks last month. A representative of ASTRID, the operator of the Belgian TETRA public safety communications network, has said investigations are ongoing. Further details of the event can be read here, or for a commentary post, click here.

FirstNet extends proposal date. Organisations submitting proposals for the right to build and operate FirstNet’s nationwide public safety broadband network in the US have additional time to prepare their bids, with the request-for-proposal (RFP) deadline now extended to 31 May.

Teltronic wins at ICC Awards 2016. The SIRCE solution by Teltronic, which will play a vital role in communications at this year’s Rio Olympics, has won the Best Use of Control Room Systems category at the International Critical Communications Awards. SIRCE, according to Teltronic, can support more than 18,000 police radios, while base stations with up to 12 TETRA transceivers will support high traffic loads throughout the event.

Body-worn cameras for the border. US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is asking for feedback from technology companies on the use of body cameras for their border patrol officers. A report states the CBP is interested in body-worn cameras and vehicle-mounted cameras that border officers can manually activate with a touch to a single button. High security, capabilities for secure wireless video transfer and resistance to dislodging are also key features the CBP wants to explore.

Stay tuned. Comms Connect Wellington 2016, attended by Australian and New Zealand critical comms personnel, will wrap up in Wellington today. We’ll keep you informed over the coming weeks on all the news and views straight from the event.

Image of soldiers after the Brussels terror attacks, courtesy of Ronan Shenhav under CC-BY-2.0