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Public Safety Mobile Broadband

What is Public Safety Mobile Broadband?

A national Public Safety Mobile Broadband (PSMB) capability will deliver the 21st century communications needed to ensure our public safety agencies continue to keep Australians safe.

A national PSMB will support the applications and technologies required to improve operational efficiency and effectiveness by allowing access to video, images, location tracking and other data.

Existing technologies include land and mobile ultra-high frequency (UHF) radio, which are robust and reliable to a mission-critical level but cannot support heavy data traffic and web-based applications. Some emergency services use consumer-grade commercial mobile broadband networks to transmit data and supplement existing systems, these networks do not meet mission-critical standards.

All Australian jurisdictions have agreed to participate in the development of a national PSMB capability. 

National Roadmap for PSMB

A significant step towards delivering a national PSMB capability was achieved at the meeting of the Council of Australian Governments on 12 December 2018, with agreement to a national roadmap across all jurisdictions.

Benefits of PSMB for public safety agencies

The Public Safety Mobile Broadband National Roadmap (page 4) identifies that a national PSMB will deliver a communications platform that:

  • improves access to information
  • provides real-time, automated situational awareness
  • creates a platform for emerging technologies to be integrated into operational practices.

NSW Telco Authority’s role

Since 2013, the NSW Telco Authority has been actively engaging with public safety agencies across Australia to define what a nationwide PSMB should look like. This has included engagements across the Commonwealth, States and Territories, as well as public safety agencies. The primary outcome has been to  develop and establish 11 national objectives, and high-level requirements for a national PSMB.

In late 2018, on behalf of all jurisdictions, the Authority, led a request for proposal from the telecommunications industry, resulting in a proof of concept (PoC) for trial of a national PSMB capability. The request for proposal closed in December 2018. The Authority will continue to lead the implementation and finalisation of the PoC.

More information