ENENSYS Technologies is pleased to announce the deployment of its eMBMS/multicast solution within the Private Mobile Network of Public Safety and Security, Airbus’s entity dedicated to critical communications.

Thanks to the responsiveness and expertise of the different teams, ENENSYS deployed its end-to-end eMBMS/Multicast solution at Airbus in less than three months. This major project enables Airbus to benefit from a complete platform within its Parisian PMR (private mobile radio network), integrating multicast functionality with a core network, a radio access network (RAN) and Agnet, Airbus MCX application for critical communications.

A technology tailored to critical communications needs

The multicast/eMBMS solution developed by ENENSYS optimizes radio resources and bandwidth, guaranteeing the stability and synchronicity of simultaneous communications for a group of mobile users. Ideally suited to crisis situations, such as emergency interventions in the field, this technology enables simultaneous exchanges, such as audio group calls, video group calls and file sharing between all participants at the same time, thanks to a “one-to-many” communication. It notably helps to avoid the network congestion often observed in unicast configurations (point-to-point communication) when there are lot of simultaneous users receiving the communication.

An end-to-end solution:

The eMBMS deployed by at Airbus is based on two main software components:

• MediaCast Mobile: ENENSYS eMBMS/Multicast server, deployed in the core network, the RAN of Airbus Mobile network and interfaced with Airbus MCX application server Agnet

• CubeAgent Mobile: ENENSYS eMBMS/Multicast client deployed on several Crosscall Core-X5 terminals also integrating the Airbus MCX application client Agnet

These advanced features enable significant bandwidth optimization, offering a state-of-the-art technological response to the growing needs of critical communications.

David Montillet, Senior Solution Architect Public Safety and Security, Airbus: “Optimizing radio resources for group communications has always been at the heart of the TETRA and Tetrapol solutions developed by Airbus and used on narrowband PMR networks. Today, despite increasingly wide bandwidths, radio resource optimization remains a crucial factor, particularly with the arrival of multimedia use cases such as video group calls and data sharing. Multicast, native to TETRA networks, has been progressively introduced in LTE networks (natively unicast) and now 5G networks (release 17 and 18 of the 3GPP standard), offering major operational gains. This optimization is essential, must be thought from the design stage of a new network, and based on the analysis of needed use cases, bandwidth needs, priorities and latency requirements. The rapid and efficient deployment of ENENSYS’s eMBMS/Multicast solution with Agnet solution on our PMR network is an excellent opportunity that will enable us to better understand and democratize this technology.”

Anthony Do Couto, Critical Communication business unit director, ENENSYS: “Working with Airbus was great, with the efficiency of the team allowing us to quickly deploy our solution on their network. Our solution is also deployed with several players in Asia, America and Europe, and the demand for multicast technology continues to grow as it is even becoming a requirement in many TETRA/LTE migration tenders. The reason is simple: in environments where bandwidth is limited, optimizing radio resources is an absolute necessity. Our eMBMS solution is currently unique on the market as we offer and end-to-end solution including a multicast server and a multicast client.”