January 2015Connecting communities through resilient wireless communications infrastructure

BAI successfully completes Australia-wide Spectrum Restack Program

2Airwave turbocharges Ergon Energy’s critical communications with P25 System, SCADA technology

4Hostworks live streams superstar physicist Brian Cox; launches dedicated Australian science TV channel

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Transit Wireless successfully launches Phase 2 of New York subway wireless commuter network

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On AirThe BAI Group Quarterly Magazine

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BAI delivers Australia-wide Digital Dividend

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BAI successfully completed the process of clearing digital television services within the Spectrum Restack Program from the Digital Dividend band (694-820 MHz) on Thursday 20 November.

As the last television services changed frequency at Black Mountain Tower, Canberra, and at Gunning, New South Wales, BAI marked the successful conclusion of the three-year project, which involved the reconfiguration of 426 transmission sites, and more than 346,000 man hours of work to complete.

BAI Group CEO Jim Hassell said he was extraordinarily proud of his team and to have worked with the Commonwealth Government on a project of this magnitude.

“This was an incredibly complex project with numerous stakeholders and very tight timeframes,” Mr Hassell said.

“The original plan was for 180 sites to be retuned over three years, but this expanded to 426 sites in less than two years.”

The Spectrum Restack Program allowed the Commonwealth Government to auction the newly-cleared Digital Dividend (694-820MHz) in May 2013, during which it raised $1.87bn from Australian telecommunications giants Optus and Telstra.

Optus and Telstra are using the digital spectrum to offer improved capacity and quality for the fast-growing high-speed wireless and mobile broadband market.

“While the completion of this project cements our engineering and delivery expertise, at its heart this work was about creating new options and opportunities for consumers,” Mr Hassell said.

“From the beginning of 2015, the cleared spectrum will allow for the release of cutting-edge telecommunications technology to support the latest communications trends.”

The program’s successful completion gives Australian consumers greater choice and access to high-speed, digital communications technologies.

This was an incredibly complex project with numerous stakeholders and very tight timeframes.

The Spectrum Restack Program• Delivered within budget and

ahead of the official timeframe• Retuned 426 sites• 346,000 man hours• Peak workforce of 200• Zero lost time injuries

BAI’s broadcast transmission network• 600 sites nationwide• 1,464 TV & radio services• 12,824,640 broadcast hours per year• Providing digital coverage to 98% of

Australian population

Australia’s digital future• Telstra and Optus purchased

some of the Digital Dividend band (694-820 MHz) for $1.87bn

• The newly created spectrum provides capacity for data rich mobile devices

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Partners and stakeholders• Commonwealth Government• Public broadcasters• Commercial broadcasters• Telstra & Optus• Partners including BTS, UGL,

Kordia, TXA, SCA

Wang Song / Shutterstock.com

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Airwave has worked closely with local industry to encourage

as much Australian and New Zealand content as possible...

The new network bolsters Ergon’s disaster management capacity as it can now rely on uninterrupted voice and digital communications in times of need, vastly improving its ability to maintain electricity supply and public safety.

Unlike some critical communications networks that use North American manufactured equipment, Airwave has worked closely with local industry to encourage as much Australian and New Zealand content as possible, achieving more than 90 per cent local content in the Ergon solution.

All equipment supplied to Ergon is fully compliant and interoperable with the international standards for a critical communications network. The use of locally designed and made equipment has translated to greater levels of timely support, improved reliability and delivered superior value for Ergon’s investment.

Whether it encounters cyclones, flooding or other severe weather events, Ergon’s communications network remains fully operational, even when all cellular 3G/4G mobile phone networks have collapsed due to congestion or insufficient back-up power.

Ergon Energy’s electricity network covers 97 per cent of Queensland, or around 1.7 million square kilometres, including some of Australia’s most isolated, rugged and impenetrable terrain.

Ergon’s previous radio communications network was at its end-of-life and could not interact with other electronic and digital technologies and communications systems in the case of an emergency.

BAI Airwave Head of Network Solutions Ashley Marshall said forging a close working partnership, through the

Ergon-Airwave Joint Management Team, was crucial to the successful design and implementation of the new, mission-critical radio communications system.

“To ensure the project met Ergon’s expectations and our own rigorous standards, we interviewed key Ergon stakeholders, undertook detailed workshops to identify timeframes and potential problems, drafted a strategic plan for the project and set monthly Joint Management Team meetings,” Mr Marshall said.

“By the time the project plan was finished, we had a detailed, feasible and realistic road map which everyone felt they had ownership of.

“As a result, when we moved from the planning and design phase to the implementation phase, Airwave and Ergon moved as if they were one single entity.”

At the heart of the project was the installation of a P25 Digital Radio Network – an open standards-based system used frequently by police, ambulance and emergency services due to its high level of interoperability with external and internal technological and communications systems.

“Ergon’s new radio communications system uses a push-to-talk network of radios featuring live GPS location-based information, and Disaster Recovery Cores located in physically diverse locations to ensure network operability in a natural disaster,” Mr Marshall said.

“Where Ergon’s field crews were frequently deployed to cover hundreds of kilometres to redirect services, now they can do it instantly with one of the push-to-talk radios installed in more than 400 vehicles in Queensland.”

Airwave has installed the network across Queensland and plans to work with Ergon to expand to additional sites in 2015-16.

Delivering Ergon Energy’s new radio communications network, one that could operate regardless of the state’s extreme weather and natural disasters, demanded that Airwave forge a close working relationship with the Queensland electricity distributor and deploy innovative thinking.

Inside Ergon Energy’s innovative critical communications network

Hostworks’ Media Foundry delivers dedicated science TV channel

Hostworks’ rich media solution - Media Foundry - will power the new TV channel, meeting RiAus’ need to distribute its cutting-edge digital science and technology content to desktops, tablets and smartphones across Australia.

Hostworks Chief Executive Officer Will Berryman said he was excited to be a part of such a great step forward for science and technology in Australia.

“We’re proud to have been able to use our Media Foundry Service to provide RiAus with a tailored digital media service in a partnership that will overcome the barriers of distance and affordability for Australian science content consumers,” Mr Berryman said.

“We now think of Media Foundry as a ‘platform of imagination’. RiAus’ mission gives us great potential to innovate and push our digital platform in new and creative ways.”

RiAus’ mission is to broadcast high quality science content from some of Australia’s major science-based organisations.

Hostworks will provide an entire package of digital support to RiAus including interface creation, wireframes development, encoding/decoding and content streaming to urban, remote and rural locations across Australia.

RiAus TV will include application-based capabilities, supporting the popular iOS and Android platforms.

Hostworks, in partnership with Australia’s national science hub RiAus, has launched Australia’s first dedicated science TV channel.

Superstar physicist Brian Cox took more than 16,000 Australian students, parents and teachers across the country on an exhilarating live streamed journey through our cosmos, courtesy of Hostworks’ Media Foundry service.

Professor Cox, described by David Attenborough as the natural successor for BBC’s scientific programming, has been boosting the popularity of science in classrooms and living rooms alike through his natural ability to make complex concepts understandable, engaging and entertaining.

The live stream Q&A session, titled In Class with Brian Cox, enabled students between the ages of 8 and 16 to submit their most burning questions to Dr Cox, who then answered them live on televisions, computers and radios around Australia.

The Royal Institute of Australia (RiAus) – Australia’s national science hub – hosted the conversation with Dr Cox, and used Hostworks’ ‘digital roadies’ to seamlessly project the content around Australia.

Hostworks CEO Will Berryman said Hostworks’ Media Foundry service had enabled thousands of young Australians to enjoy content they would not normally have been able to access.

“It’s incredibly exciting for us to add our own skills and innovation to distribute the work of such an imaginative and passionate professional as Dr Cox,” Mr Berryman said.

“The Hostworks-enabled live stream meant school students in Australia’s smallest regional and rural schools had an experience that was exactly the same as their peers in Sydney and Melbourne.”

Professor Cox works as a particle physicist on the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Switzerland, and is Professor of Physics at the University of Manchester.

Hostworks helps students make sense of the cosmos

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The Governor of New York has praised Transit Wireless for making the city a safer and more connected place, following the successful launch of Phase 2 of the New York subway wireless commuter network project.

Governor of New York praises Transit Wireless

As part of the Phase 2 expansion, 40 subway stations in Manhattan and Queens have been added to the underground network, connecting an additional 47 million riders monthly to wireless 3G and 4G voice and data services.

The newly-connected subway stations allow commuters to access vital emergency services communications for the first time, enabling them to dial 911 in an emergency and access underground Help Point Intercom kiosks.

New York State Governor Andrew M. Cuomo said the city that never sleeps is a safer place for commuters as a result of the Transit Wireless project.

"A more stable network below ground ensures that riders and first responders can seamlessly communicate in events of emergency, which is essential in a system that carries millions of passengers every day,” Governor Cuomo said.

Transit Wireless has started work on Phase 3 of the project - due for completion in April 2015 – which will connect a further 39 subway stations to the wireless network, taking the total to 115 operational stations.

By 2017, all 278 underground New York City subway stations will be connected by more than 7,000 multi-frequency distributed antennas and more than 200km of fibre optic cable.

Follow Transit Wireless on Twitter@TransitWireless and on Facebook at facebook.com/TransitWireless. For a listing of the current stations please visit www.transitwirelesswifi.com

...the city that never sleeps is a safer place for commuters as a result of the Transit Wireless project.

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On Wednesday 7 November BAI launched the first stage in its off-grid renewable energy power trial in partnership with Photon Energy at its Muswellbrook broadcast facility. At a launch event attended by Port Macquarie MP Leslie Williams, project partners Photon Energy, the German Energy Agency (dena) and BAI detailed the bright future the pioneering program heralds for regional and remote locations across Australia where reliability and cost have significant impacts on communications.

BAI Group CEO Jim Hassell said BAI was excited to be at the forefront of advanced technology in the communications sector.

“The outcome of this Australia-first project will be to provide consumers with improved service reliability, which is critical in remote areas where broadcast towers transit local emergency services, as well as a lower operational carbon footprint and greater cost certainty,” Mr Hassell said.

The renewable energy system features a 156 panel, 39kWp solar PV power installation, linked to 3 banks of 24 BAE batteries with 215 kWh of storage – enough capacity to supply the majority of the broadcast facility’s power requirements.

BAI launches renewable broadcast tower

Talkgroup extender demoAirwave hosted telecommunications and emergency services representatives at Broadcast Australia’s Liverpool site on Wednesday 12 November to demonstrate the TalkGroup Extender system – a smart radio communications system for emergency services personnel. Representatives from NSW Fire and Rescue, NSW Rural Fire Service, the Ambulance Service of NSW, Ausgrid, Endeavour Energy and the NSW Telco Authority attended the demonstration.

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Committing to a global Wi-Fi future

BAI Canada and Transit Wireless have furthered their commitment to the future of global Wi-Fi by joining the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA).Alongside some of the world’s largest and most sophisticated Wi-Fi operators and vendors, the sister companies will help the WBA in its mission to secure the global deployment of next generation Wi-Fi.

The WBA facilitates industry forums, conducts advocacy and fosters cooperation between major technology companies including Google, Intel and Microsoft, and Wi-Fi operators and vendors.

BAI Group Managing Director, International Business Chris Jaeger said the BAI Group was excited to be joining the WBA panel and its high-profile membership, which collectively serve more than 1 billion Wi-Fi subscribers globally and drive global Wi-Fi innovation and best-practice.

"BAI Canada and Transit Wireless are building a world class, multi-application, broadband wireless network within the TTC and MTA subway systems that will bring tremendous benefits to the subway riders," Mr Jaeger said.

"We are excited to bring forth our current project earnings and 80+ years of experience to the WBA panel, helping to ensure that consumers enjoy a superior Wi-Fi experience via networks that are both seamless and secure. We will be attending WBA’s fifth Wi-Fi Global Congress and 25th WBA Roundtable Conference."

Calling all App Developers!The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), AT&T, Transit Wireless, the NYU Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) and ChallengePost are partnering on the third annual App Quest 3.0, the challenge seeks to generate the best transportation-related apps for New Yorkers using MTA data. App developers will be able to compete for a total of $50,000 in prize money being contributed by AT&T.

For the first time App developers will be able to use beacon technology deployed by Transit Wireless in Grand Central (Phase 2) station as a part of this year’s competition. More information about App Quest 3.0 can be found at http://mtaappquest.com and is open internationally.

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Airwave carried out live demonstrations of the industry-leading P25 Solution Centre at Comms Connect 2014.

The demonstrations showcased the effectiveness and interoperability of the cutting-edge, open standards-based technology in a real-life situation.

BAI and SBS banded together for the fifth year in a row on Sunday 2 November to support Multiple Sclerosis, registering the largest team in this year’s Sydney to the Gong Bike Ride.

The joint BAI-SBS team of more than 190 riders raised $108,728 to help provide medical and social support to victims of MS. The event’s 10,000 cyclists raised just over $3 million in total.

P25 Solution Centre at Comms Connect

Gong Ride

Cyclone SundayBAI and the ABC helped to ready Townsville residents for the imminent cyclone season, by hosting Cyclone Sunday, an emergency preparedness event, at Strand Park on 3 November.

With an average of four cyclones expected to form over North Queensland in a typical season, Townsville’s almost 190,000 residents may well need to rely on emergency services communications.

To demonstrate how locals could receive transmissions in the case of a regular communications transmission failure, BAI and the ABC transmitted an uninterrupted four hour broadcast using BAI’s portable emergency communications equipment live from the event.

To achieve the broadcast, BAI used a ‘flyaway transmitter’, a portable transmitter custom-designed to be used for emergency communications.

Cyclone Sunday demonstrated how effective partnerships and active cooperation between Australian infrastructure providers (BAI), and broadcasters (ABC) can lead to exceptional emergency services outcomes.