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Public Safety Communications Research

(PSCR) 

Department of Commerce – Boulder Labs
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Public Safety Communications Research Program

Located at the 

Department of Commerce

Boulder Labs in Colorado

The PSCR Program is a 

joint effort between:

 

NIST’s 

Office of Law

Enforcement Standards

(OLES) 

and

NTIA’s

Institute for 

Telecommunication

Sciences 

(ITS)
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PSCR Sponsors

Department of Homeland 

Security

Office for Interoperability 

and Compatibility

Department of Justice

Office of Community 

Oriented Policing Services
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PSCR Portfolio

LMR Standards 

and 

Technologies 

Broadband 

Standards and 

Technologies 

Emerging 

Standards and 

Technologies 

P25 Standards and 

CAP*

Demonstration 

Network* Bridging LMR & LTE*

P25 Test Tools* and 

Simulation

Requirements and 

Standards* Video Quality*

Public Safety VoIP* Mission Critical 

Voice*

Audio Quality* Modeling and 

Simulation

RF Propagation 

Studies

RF Propagation 

Studies

* Project funded by DHS Office of Interoperability and Compatibility 
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NIST and the Legislation

• The legislation provides $100 million to NIST after 

successful spectrum auctions net $7.2 billion or 

more

– An additional $200 million will be allocated to NIST if 

spectrum auctions net more than $27.6 billion

– These spectrum auctions could take upwards of 7 years.

• Until the $100/$300 million is allocated to NIST, 

the agency’s expertise and technical objectivity is 

required to ensure the early success of the 

network
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FirstNet Requirements Related to PSCR Activities

Subsection B of the legislation mandates FirstNet to (among other things):

• Requirements: Develop requirements for safety, security, and resiliency 

of the network 

• Standards: Ensure there are nationwide standards for use and access of 

the network

• Testing: Implement a robust infrastructure and device certification 

regime

– Maintenance and Upgrades: Ensure seamless maintenance and 

upgrades of the network through this testing program

• Research & Development: Though FirstNet is not required to perform 

R&D per the legislation, NIST’s Organic Act will cover the R&D that is 

necessary to ensure success for public safety’s early adoption of network 

technologies.
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Requirements

• PSCR chairs the NPSTC Broadband Working Group

– 200+ public safety members

– Developed the 700MHz Broadband Statement of Requirements

• Currently being updated at Workshops in Boulder, CO May 23-24, 

Denver, CO June 26-27, and Boulder, CO August 8-9

• Will be delivered to FirstNet upon instantiation in August 2012

– Defined Mission Critical Voice Communications Requirements for Public 

Safety, August 2011

• PSCR leads 5 BBWG Task Groups

– Local Control

• Published a Definition of Local Control document, February 2012

– Multimedia Emergency Services

– Priority/Quality of Service

– Security

– Voice

• PSCR is active in other broadband requirements gathering 

efforts

– APCO Broadband Working Group

– DOJ’s National Forum on Public Safety Broadband Needs

– PSST Operators Advisory Council
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Standards

PSCR has historically provided insight and direction to IT and wireless standards committees that are 

developing standards for voice, data, image, and video communication specific to public safety. 

PSCR’s work is currently focused in these SDOs:

The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) produces the technical standards 

and specifications for LTE, uniting numerous telecommunications standards 

bodies under one group.

• PSCR is a member of 3GPP and represents public safety’s requirements

• PSCR has introduced a work item into 3GPP to address Direct Mode 

(Proximity Services) communications

The Alliance for Telecommunications Solutions (ATIS) is the North American 

standards body representative in 3GPP.

• PSCR is a member of ATIS and represents public safety’s requirements

• PSCR has created an issue statement that would give the ATIS WTSC the 

ability to work on public safety specific issues

The GSM Association (GSMA) is an association of mobile operators and related 

companies that support the standardization of the GSM system.

• PSCR is actively seeking membership to GSMA in order to represent public 

safety’s requirements to their Voice over LTE (VoLTE) initiative

The Global Alliance of the APCO and TETRA Critical Communications Association 

(TCCA) have officially announced their support of first-responder LTE standards 

work being conducted by PSCR.
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Testing

FirstNet will need to stand up a robust compliance and interoperability testing 

program for devices and infrastructure on the network.

• PSCR is working with the PCS Type Certification Review Board (PTCRB) and

the MultiService Forum (MSF), both international testing bodies, to 

understand how other segments of the cellular industry perform certification 

testing on both devices and infrastructure.

• Additionally, PSCR has experience designing and launching a compliance 

assessment program for Project 25 land mobile radios.

• This well-documented and formal test process will also help FirstNet manage 

maintenance and upgrades across the network and across multiple 

manufacturers equipment.
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R&D: Demonstration Network

The only government or independent lab facility located in 

the United States to test and demonstrate public safety 

700 MHz broadband networks and applications

The Demonstration Network provides:

• A place for manufacturers and carriers to deploy 

their systems to test them in a multi-vendor 

environment. This provides integration 

opportunities.

• A place for public safety to see how these systems 

will function, specific to their unique needs. 

Interested agencies can visit the network and get 

hands-on experience with these systems, as well as 

run public safety specific test cases that relate 

directly to their operational environments. 

• A place where early builders can ensure that the 

systems they might procure will in fact work in the 

eventual nationwide network, assisting agencies in 

their procurement process.
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R&D: Demo Network CRADA Partners
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R&D: Demonstration Network Study Items

• Network Identifiers: Developing requirements for a single nationwide public safety 700-

MHz public land mobile network (PLMN), as well as test cases to evaluate such 

requirements.

• Network Performance: Defining basic and public-safety-specific 700-MHz LTE 

demonstration network requirements for coverage, use planning and implementation, 

metrics and test strategy.

• UE Testing: Determining UE test cases for UE deployments in the public safety 700-MHz 

demonstration network. The goal is to ensure that UE deployments meet performance 

and interference requirements identified by Federal, state, and local agencies.

• Infrastructure Testing – RAN & EPC: Defining test processes, requirements, and 

specifications to cover minimum performance and conformance to LTE/3GPP 

specifications. The infrastructure testing group is also addressing the same issues related 

to interoperability of network infrastructure. 

• Roaming & Clearing: Defining standards, recommending architecture, and creating test 

cases for possible LTE roaming scenarios applicable to the public safety 700-MHz 

demonstration network.

• Universal Integrated Circuit Card (UICC): Defining an initial set of parameters and 

requirements for the UICC, including software features.
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R&D: Audio Quality Testing

Audio Quality Testing:

• Firefighter reports showed that some 

background noises created by firefighting 

equipment can interfere with digital 

narrowband communication

• Similar audio quality issues may arise as voice 

is introduced to the public safety broadband 

network

• PSCR is initiating broadband audio quality 

testing with:

• A transcoding study between the 

Adaptive Multi-Rate Narrow Band 

vocoder (the fallback vocoder for Voice 

over LTE) and the Project 25 vocoder

• A subjective experiment to understand 

the effect of background noise on the 

new vocoder
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R&D: Video Quality Testing

Video Quality Testing:

Video is one of the most commonly identified use 

cases for the network and also the most likely to 

congest it.

• Traditional methods of evaluating perceived 

broadcast video quality are not appropriate 

for public safety video.

• PSCR has been conducting research to 

develop task-specific video quality 

requirements for public safety applications. 

• This work has been incorporated into 

International Telecommunication Union (ITU) 

standards for subjective task-based video 

quality. 

• Outputs of this research will allow for 

informed decisions on quality of service 

parameters for the public safety network.
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R&D: 700MHz Modeling & Simulation

700MHz Modeling and Simulation:

Work performed by: 

NIST Information Technology Laboratory 

and 

NIST Physical Measurement Laboratory

• Providing the public safety community with the 

performance analysis tools needed to better 

understand emerging network technologies, including:

• The evaluation of worst/best case network 

deployment scenarios

• The investigation of how well new technologies 

support public safety requirements

• The development of quantitative requirements 

for public safety communications

• Informing build out of the Demonstration Network and 

using the network’s data to inform models 

• Driving the development of next generation network 

standards in support of public safety communication 

needs
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R&D: LMR to LTE Interface

For the foreseeable future, public safety will be leveraging narrowband for voice and broadband 

for data communications, but there must be the capability to connect the narrowband and 

broadband systems together to create more dynamic communications capability amongst all 

existing systems.

• Through the NPSTC BBWG Broadband Voice Task Group, PSCR is looking at LMR/Broadband 

integration, including mission-critical voice over broadband and requirements for direct 

mode communication

• In developing a specification for an LMR to LTE interface, PSCR 

is leveraging its past work in:

• Radio over Wireless Broadband (ROW-B), which 

successfully integrated radios operating on an existing 

Land Mobile Radio (LMR) system with a 700MHz 

broadband network

• Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), in which PSCR led a 

coalition of public safety officials and bridging systems 

vendors to develop an VoIP implementation profile so 

one emergency response agency could seamlessly 

connect its radio system to another agency’s system over 

a network—regardless of manufacturer

LMR to LTE Interface:
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Moving Forward

Providing objective technical information about the network

• The PSCR Demonstration Network provides a central and independent test 

bed/laboratory to help public safety understand 3GPP Release 9, 10, etc.

– Provides an objective forum for public safety to test and verify new 

capabilities

Ensuring the network has the crucial long-term capabilities to meet public safety’s 

needs

• Coordinating development of crucial capabilities to make the network successful 

across multiple requirements efforts and standards bodies:

– Audio Quality over LTE testing

– LMR to LTE

Uniting public safety to ensure the network meets long-term needs

• PSCR is currently interacting with the vast majority of the key stakeholders 

across these multiple efforts

– Requirements Development

– Standards Representation

– Demonstration Network

– Other R&D