Airbus and Nemergent successfully integrated, in July 2022, their respective secure Mission Critical Services (MCX) with *5G Quality of Service (QoS) modification and control mechanisms, in the 5G testbed of the University of Malaga powered by Athonet’s 5G mobile core network.

This successful experiment – a world first in mission-critical communications - was carried out as part of the 5G-EPICENTRE European funded project. Airbus, the project coordinator, worked together with Athonet, Nemergent and the University of Malaga.

During this full-scale test, teams used the University of Malaga's 5G network, powered by Athonet Core, to demonstrate the prioritization of secure critical communications using MCX solutions over 5G for Public Protection and Disaster Relief (PPDR).

Both Airbus and Nemergent were able to perform a demonstration of the QoS management concept. During the demonstration, network resources were managed and controlled, prioritising and dedicating bandwidth for the PPDR critical communications, over other services.

5G networks can provide the telecommunication efficiency and effectiveness required for everyday high-demanding operations such as those of PPDR, which embrace the MCX standard for critical communication, data, video, and other services. The high speed and ultra-reliable connectivity with extremely low latency enable MCX services to be more sophisticated, reliable, and smarter.

Alain Dubois, Head of System Architecture team at Airbus and project coordinator said: “Airbus’s solution combined with the University of Malaga's network and Athonet's expertise, has demonstrated continuous improvement in the effectiveness of critical communications for PPDR. This pioneering success paves the way for future MCX integrations in 5G networks."

Eneko Atxutegi, head of R+D department, Nemergent-Solutions declared “This is a relevant first step towards securing mission critical network conditions in 5G, which is essential for the future transition of PPDR communication solutions to new use-cases and business models in commercial broadband networks.”

“Validating the effectiveness of the advanced 5G features offered by our 5G core network is of paramount importance for Athonet. The successful results on QoS management obtained within the framework of 5G-EPICENTRE make us proud, and even more so since they have been achieved with high-profile academic and industrial partners with the aim of improving business-critical and mission-critical uses in the PPDR arena.” said Nicola di Pietro, Research & Innovation department, Athonet

“For the University of Málaga it has been a pleasure to support this integration and we are willing to continue demonstrating the new features that 5G brings to the PPDR community” concluded Almudena Díaz, associate professor and principal researcher of the 5G-EPICENTRE project at the University of Malaga.

5G-EPICENTRE aims to lower barriers to 5G adoption and market entry for European SMEs to conduct rigorous experimentation of their products and applications aimed at the public safety market, through the provision of an open, federated, end-to-end experimentation facility.