PREVIOUS MEETING:

Project MESA Meeting
Place: Orlando, Florida
Date: January 31 to February 21, 2008

Archived files and background information:

Official TIA Project MESA Brochure (452Kb, PDF)

PSPP Conference Agenda with Hyperlinked Speaker Presentations (Aug 11, 2000)

Joint Press Release (May 25, 2000)

Click here to read the PSPP agreement (353Kb PDF, 7 pages - Jan 29, 2001)

PSPP Partnership Project Description (PPD) (362Kb PPT, 51 slides - April 5, 2000)

OVERVIEW

Public Safety Partnership Project (PSPP)/Project MESA:  PSPP or Project MESA – Mobility for Emergency and Safety Applications, is a standardization Partnership Project within the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) area. The current Partnership Agreement for project MESA was modified and ratified in January 2001 in the City of Mesa, Ariz., between the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) of the United States of America and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) of Europe. While ETSI and TIA support the administrative needs of the project, it is the members who articulate the requirements and perform the technical work required to develop Project MESA specifications.

The purpose of MESA is to collect user requirements and elaborate joint specifications that define applications for mobile broadband technology to be deployed in support of law enforcement, international crime and terror investigations, intelligence, emergency and medical services, fire fighting, civil and homeland defense, and disaster response.  The PSPP was given the name “Project MESA” in recognition of the city where the partnership agreement was finalized.  In addition, MESA stands for “Mobility for Emergency and Safety Applications.”  Due to commonalties between U.S.-centered advanced public safety radio system Project 34 (TIA and APCO) and European-based Digital Advanced Wireless Service (DAWS), TIA and ETSI agreed to collaborate and combine work efforts to provide a forum in which the key players can contribute actively to the elaboration of MESA specifications.  The project is open to other regions of the world and has had observers from Canada and Korea and participation from an ever-increasing number of countries. Please refer to the www.projectmesa.org Web site for further information.

Facilitation of internationally recognized specifications for public safety and emergency/disaster communications

Transposed into regional/national Standards Development Organization (SDO) standards and other applicable documents

Primarily wireless high-speed data access using a multitude of technologies, applications and services

International and national coordination (through Organizational Partners [OPs] and national processes)

International and national outreach (through OPs and national resources)

Coordination of related R&D efforts

THE PROBLEM TO BE ADDRESSED

Threats and challenges to the fabric of society are growing in complexity, frequency of occurrence and scope. The ability of local, regional and national governments to react to and manage such situations has not kept pace with current events and circumstances, particularly in the area of communications. Responses to natural (e.g., hurricanes and floods) and man-made (e.g., terrorist acts) disasters are hampered by the inability to communicate simultaneous voice, data, imaging and live video. Additionally, interoperability and ad hoc capabilities during times of decreased or non-existent infrastructure is a major issue for this sector; MESA addresses such needs. 

Both public safety personnel and citizens are raising concerns over needed improvements in emergency medical services, fire prevention and suppression, public protection and security, disaster response, bio-terrorism response, civil defense, and infrastructure maintenance and expansion. Recent examples show that network communications facilities can bog down when called upon to support thousands of transmissions related to a blizzard, train wreck or other catastrophic or criminal act. Commercial and private systems can be hampered or destroyed by floods and other disasters. On a more sinister level, criminal and terrorist elements are coordinating their illicit activities with increasingly sophisticated communications, in many cases matching or exceeding the level of technology available to the local law enforcement community. In these and similar cases, orchestrating any kind of coordinated response invariably places an overwhelming demand upon already overburdened and limited communications capabilities. President George W. Bush himself has supported an increased emphasis on broadband communications. MESA aims to coordinate and encapsulate next-generation networks (NGN) user needs (broadband, wireless, ad hoc, flexible) and facilitate solutions for advanced public safety capabilities that are backward compatible or interoperable with current land mobile radio (LMR) deployments, yet able to incorporate other technologies and network capabilities as applicable.

THE PROPOSED SOLUTION

In light of the aforementioned scenarios, public safety users have called for new services and capabilities designed to effectively, efficiently and economically meet emerging public safety challenges and needs. Early in 2000, TIA and ETSI recognized a unique opportunity to jointly address similar public safety challenges and scenarios plaguing North America and Europe. Specifically, both organizations realized the importance of starting now to progress common specifications for advanced emergency service applications that would address the public safety needs of not only the 800 million citizens in North America and Europe, but of those in other parts of the world. This realization led to the Public Safety Partnership Project (PSPP), a joint project aimed at addressing common requirements and needs of public safety users in North America and Europe, before general product development begins. The result of this public safety-oriented activity will be harmonized specifications for broadband terrestrial mobility applications and services driven by common scenarios and spectrum allocations.

The initial Partnership Project Agreement (PPA) for the PSPP was signed by TIA and ETSI on May 22, 2000, and last updated in January of 2001 in Mesa, Airz., where the activity was renamed Project MESA (Mobility for Emergency and Safety Applications).  Besides the United States and the European Union (EU), other regional standards groups (e.g., Asia and Canada) and international organizations (e.g., UN/ITU, NATO) are also becoming engaged in Project MESA activities.  Because MESA is attempting to coordinate user input from various nations, it is crucial that the U.S.’s voice be heard loud and clear.  With full U.S. participation and input, this will allow American public safety needs and requirements to be fully vetted and harmonized into any final Project MESA deliverables that may be transposed into European norms and American national standards. The U.S. public safety community, industry and research communities are having a significant opportunity to collaborate and influence the final results and the ability downstream to procure standardized systems at lower cost for this critical sector.

Other organizations/agencies that actively support Project MESA include the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO), the FBI, DHS, the National Communications System, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the Federal Law Enforcement Wireless Users Group (FLEWUG), the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences, NASA, various state police and prosecutor’s offices, the American Red Cross, SAFECOM and NIST, among others. Additionally, recent meetings of international standards organizations, known as Global Standards Collaboration (GSC), have authorized resolutions identifying MESA as part of the current global standards landscape involving public safety and disaster relief priorities (GSC High Interest Subject). The ITU has also recognized the need for emergency communications standards and has indicated that Project MESA is where current broadband mobile communication activity is being addressed. These activities can be supported from MESA deliverables.

Understandably, various public safety services may have very different communications needs, which may differ between agencies and countries. Having a digital broadband communication system based on common capabilities and standardized technology will help to ensure interoperability of public safety services and applications, within and between agencies and/or countries, in an ad hoc or established jurisdictional environment. Public safety and law enforcement issues are now, more than ever, a worldwide challenge. Also, to facilitate effective communications and interoperability during emergency situations, it is crucial that users and various types of terminals understand each other, allowing information exchange via multiple and divergent facilities, platforms and devices.

Similar to ongoing partnership and development projects that are jointly defining third-generation cellular services (i.e., 3GPP and 3GPP2), the PSPP is under the joint leadership of TIA and ETSI and will facilitate next-generation broadband communications technology specifications and interoperability requirements based upon harmonized user needs. These requirements can be tailored for specific national and regional implementation scenarios and situations. Additionally, MESA supports the identification of a coordinated global spectrum allocations required to support many next-generation communications platforms for public protection and disaster relief (PPDR).

OBJECTIVES

A number of critical factors must be quickly addressed for this program to be successful. First and foremost, the public safety community must continue to energize, support and drive the activity, as this community is uniquely aware of and therefore the most qualified to define, qualify and quantify the current and future requirements of public safety users.  Such requirements have been collected as a MESA Statement of Requirements (SoR) document, and the latest 2005 approved version is entitled MESA TS 70.001 V3.2.1, Project MESA; Service Specification Group – Services and Applications; Statement of Requirements.  The SoR outlines advanced public safety user-defined mobile broadband scenarios and system requirements that are allowing the industry-led MESA Technical Specification Group – Systems (TSG SYS) to define specifications for the systems and equipment necessary to support user services.  In addition to the SoR, the MESA Steering Committee has also completed and approved the SoR/user services matrix and the MESA Definitions, Symbols and Abbreviations document.  All are available at http://www.projectmesa.org/ftp/specifications/.  The SoR executive summary can be viewed at: http://www.projectmesa.org/MESA_SoR/SoR.htm.

The MESA SoR describes and defines future MESA specifications involving broadband air interface data rates beyond current standards, including multiple levels of security and encryption to allow public safety professionals to communicate over a wide area, using a myriad of technological platforms and applications that would include, but not be limited to, secure information, voice, video and infrared video, high-speed data, still photos, and enhanced patient and first responder bio-telemetry information.

Similarly, the active participation of equipment manufacturers, systems integrators, data system content developers, network owners and operators, and communications systems consultants must become energized to support such institutional and technological challenges. As indicated, the SoR is currently being utilized by MESA TSG SYS to technically define user needs into corresponding and applicable technical specifications that will be submitted to the supporting standards development organizations (i.e., TIA and ETSI) for transposing into regional standards. For the actual standards development, the PSPP Organizational Partners, TIA in North America and its counterpart in Europe, ETSI, perform roles of providing the appropriate standardization fora and as a means of transposing MESA deliverables into SDO standards, including American National Standards.

While the objectives of Project MESA entail advanced specifications that are beyond the scope of most currently deployed technologies, the objectives also involve important milestones in the range of one to five years.  In parallel with TSG activities, the Project MESA Service Specification Group (SSG) will continue to refine the user-defined SoR document, thus underlining the need for full U.S. representation and input throughout the overall development stages,; including input to activities related to technical solutions under the TSG SYS involving systems, radio access, core networks and terminals. The speed of developments thereafter will depend on many factors, including spectrum and regulatory aspects, continued user input and advocacy, funding, and the active technical participation of MESA industry members. It is difficult to estimate a deadline for appearance of the first standardized products, as so many players are involved and a timeline for the consensus process cannot be fully forecast.  However, the project could see results and even small-scale trials “on-the-air” between 2007 and 2009, depending on identification and utilization of spectrum and as technical specification work proceeds. 

RESULTS OR BENEFITS TO BE DERIVED

Public Safety Partnership Project MESA (Mobility for Emergency and Safety Applications) is the first international communications research and development standardization partnership project whose aim is to identify next-generation user requirements and develop specifications, based on such user-articulated needs, for advanced and future public safety mobile broadband communications technology.

Industry participation is increasing since initial user requirements have been defined and technical work is now progressing. The resulting user-defined specifications will characterize future-generation broadband communications technology and interoperability requirements. These requirements can be tailored for specific local and regional implementation scenarios and situations.  MESA work will lead to:

Specifically, the end result will be a suite of specifications harmonized for broadband terrestrial mobility operations, including connectivity to broadband satellite communications (SatCom) services, driven by common scenarios and spectrum allocations. Benefits to the public safety community and our nation’s citizens will be realized in two distinct but highly related areas:

System end users:

System owner/operators:

ACHIEVEMENTS SO FAR

1. Established government and industry awareness and coordination in the European Union and North America; increasing in other regions.

   TIA and ETSI working to raise awareness/outreach levels (regionally/globally), coordinating existing and identifying future R&D efforts for the critical next-generation network (NGN) needs of public safety and national security/emergency preparedness (NS/EP) users.

2. Active public safety (e.g., public protection disaster response – PPDR) user support from 92+ organizations/agencies from all three regions.

3. Four approved documents: Current PS articulated SoR and two related documents and one TSG-developed system overview

   Project MESA definitions, symbols and abbreviations; the Project MESA SoR Matrix
   SoR being utilized/referenced by related U.S., EU, International, other activities
   Living document — needs continued North. American PS user requirements R&D support.

4. Work on corresponding technical specifications under way in MESA TSG SYS

   Approved 2005:  MESA System Overview.

5. Project MESA recognized in global standards collaboration (GSC) resolutions.

6. Project MESA recognized by ITU-T and  ITU-R.

   Project MESA broadband standardization activity documented in ITU-R Report M.2033.
   Project MESA and its OPs were specifically mentioned in ITU-R WRC-2003 Resolution for ongoing Broadband PPDR standardization activities.