The South Korean tech giant, Samsung Electronics, has announced an effective demonstration of what it terms the world’s first video call on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud platform using Mission Critical Push-to-Talk, Data and Video (MCPTX, also known as Mission Critical Communications), the communications functionality designed specifically for first responders. Based on 3GPP Release 14 specifications, this implementation was enabled by the successful onboarding, integration and deployment on AWS cloud.
Wonil Roh, Senior Vice President and Head of Product Strategy, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics, said, “This demonstration showcases how Samsung’s Mission Critical Communications solutions can manage public crises and be readily deployed on public cloud platforms. It also enables us to learn and adapt to the evolving needs of service providers and end-users alike. This brings a new level of broad coverage, scalability and reliability to mission critical service deployments, and we look forward to continuing our journey in the public safety sector to help keep communities safe and improve public emergency response outcomes.”
The AWS demonstration was conducted at Samsung’s laboratory in Korea and relied on a complete line-up of Samsung’s latest MCPTX solutions to deliver a multimedia-based communications experience. Along with Samsung’s MCPTX service platform, the demonstration also used the Samsung Galaxy XCover FieldPro, which is a rugged and secure first responder smartphone, purpose-built for public safety users.
In a news release, Samsung stated that the MCPTX delivers powerful data and video communications capabilities surpassing Land Mobile Radio (LMR) technology, which provides traditional voice-based services. The MCPTX “opens a new horizon in advancing public safety” by allowing first responders to simultaneously connect with hundreds of fellow responders and easily share videos, images, files and more during an emergency. Samsung said that this technology will help improve situational awareness and information accuracy, especially during local disasters or urgent threats.
Amir Rao, Head of Global Solution Portfolio and Tech Alliances for Telco industry at AWS, said, “AWS offers a ubiquitous cloud programming model through its public availability zones and AWS Outpost services, which can be deployed at the Telco Operators data center or network edge locations. This demonstration of Samsung’s MCPTX solution on Amazon’s cloud platform brings the latest innovations to the public safety sector, and the two companies will continue to collaborate on developing technologies to provide new and reliable services to customers.”
In addition, Samsung’s approach increases the scalability and flexibility of public safety networks for operators by reducing the time spent deploying in-house data centers and allowing participants to adjust the usage of resources as required. Samsung said that its MCPTX customers will have the option of deploying this solution on their on-premise servers or AWS cloud platform.
