March 30, 2015

A copyright agreement is now in place that will allow the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Push-to-Communicate for Public Safety (PCPS) specifications - based on OMA Push-to-talk over Cellular (PoC) - to be used in 3GPP specifications for mission-critical Push To Talk (MCPTT).

The agreement, approved by the OMA Board and now out for signature among the 3GPP SDOs, is a vital aid to the progress of the work of 3GPP’s new SA6 working group, allowing them to use PCPS 1.0 texts where needed to complete 3GPP MCPTT without having to ‘re-invent the wheel’.

In recognition of the efforts in both OMA and 3GPP to get this decision made and implemented in good time, the OMA General Manager, Seth Newberry, commented “OMA extends its thanks to all who worked so hard to forge this agreement and we wish SA6 the best of luck in developing the LTE MCPTT specification. We look forward to future collaboration with 3GPP and the first responder community the world over.”

Balazs Bertenyi, the 3GPP SA Chairman praised the way that the memberships of both bodies were able to move on this agreement. Balazs Bertenyi observed: “This copyright agreement will ensure that the specifications for LTE MCPTT get done. If the stakeholders hadn’t shown the goodwill and enthusiasm that has been in evidence – we could have been facing delays in getting some of the specifications based on OMA PoC ready on time.”

Further reading

From 3GPP

• "LTE Mission Critical Applications" - An article written at the time of the creation of 3GPP WG SA6.
• "Delivering Public Safety Communications with LTE" - A 3GPP article by Iain Sharpe.
• "Deploying Public Safety LTE" - A news article from SNS Research suggests that by 2020 the installed base of private public-safety LTE eNodeB units will approach 155,000, serving an estimated 4 million professional users worldwide. 

About OMA

OMA was formed in June 2002 by the world’s leading mobile operators, device and network suppliers, information technology companies and content and service providers.

OMA is a non-profit organization that delivers open specifications for creating interoperable services that work across all geographical boundaries, on any bearer network.

OMA’s specifications support the billions of new and existing fixed and mobile terminals across a variety of mobile networks, including traditional cellular operator networks and emerging networks supporting machine-to-machine device communication.

www.openmobilealliance.org