The two providers in mission-critical (MC) communications, Sonim Technologies and Softil, jointly announce that they have combined their technologies enabling Sonim to roll out the world’s most rugged range of next generation LTE devices for first responders.
These workforce-critical communication devices will have wide applications in vertical industries including construction, security guarding, oil, gas and chemical operations, utilities, transportation and logistics, forestry, agriculture and defense.
“Softil is delighted to partner with Sonim and integrating our BEEHD software development kit (SDK) to power the new range of rugged LTE handheld devices,” said Sagi Subocki, Softil’s vice president, Products and Marketing. “With these next-generation devices, first responders such as fire fighters and emergency services will be able to use key smartphone features such as presence, video calling, video streaming, data sharing, location services all integrated into a single device to work faster, better and more efficiently.”
The new range of Sonim LTE devices was first demonstrated at the Mobile World Congress 2018 in Barcelona, Spain, and it will be used on Softil’s booth (#2577) throughout the upcoming IWCE event in Orlando, FL., as part of a demonstration how an end-to-end MC communication service such as that of FirstNet can be cost-effectively set up using off-the-shelf ruggedised handsets running MC first responder applications powered by Softil’s BEEHD client framework.
“Sonim partners with industry leading firms to harness their technologies and produce the most feature-rich and durable devices possible to help governments and businesses keep their field workforces safe, efficient and accountable,” said Robert Escalle, vice president, Public Safety Market Segment at Sonim Technologies. “By embedding Softil’s BEEHD client solution into a new range of rugged LTE devices, we’ve done just that.”
The live demonstration will use the mission-critical push-to-talk (MCPTT) servers of Softil and Sonim partner, Nemergent Solutions, which support all of the 3GPP Release 13 requirements as well as advanced functionality defined in 3GPP release 14, allowing group, configuration and identity management for the MC clients such as the one enabled by Softil’s BEEHD.
This server stack, developed under the NIST Public Safety Innovation Acceleration Program (PSIAP) with the support by Sonim, is one the most advanced 3GPP-compliant suites presently used and future-compatible with FirstNet.
“Nemergent is proud to be the leading supplier for the core MC infrastructure implementations, working together with our partners to enable developers and early adapters around the world to deliver best-in-class mission critical communication solutions,” stressed Jose Oscar Fajardo, Nemergent CEO.
Integrating Softil BEEHD on the mission critical service-ready Sonim ruggedised handsets, supported by the power of LTE-enabled mission critical infrastructure such as the one offered by Nemergent, offers a glimpse of possibilities of creating the new breed of applications for First Responders with capabilities such as mission critical video (MCVideo), data, location, map and file sharing, which completely changes the way first responders operate and help save lives.
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