Ulf Ewaldsson, Head of Product Area Radio at Ericsson, says: "Customized commercial telecommunication solutions will play an increasingly important role for national security and public safety users. Our solution gives state authorities the chance to easily enhance their existing infrastructure to provide the effective, efficient communication needed to meet the demands of today's fast-paced society."

The solution is built on a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) concept that reuses existing commercial infrastructure. This ensures improved cost efficiency via lower capital and operational expenditures, Ewaldsson says. It also enables better service provisioning, rapid development of new features and a future-proof investment.

The contract includes mobile core elements such as Mobile Switching Service Center (MSC), Home Location Register (HLR) and multimedia solutions. The GHN solution will also support a range of mobile multimedia services, which can be easily expanded to cover future applications such as telemedicine and mobile learning.

Björn Hemstad, who is responsible for the markets in Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia, at Ericsson, says: "Increased security is on everybody's agenda today, from security for individuals and companies, to national security. And on top of that, we see an increasing need to respond to emergencies caused by environmental problems. Telecommunications is crucial in tackling these problems.

"To handle emergencies, governments have traditionally built dedicated systems for public services such as the police and fire departments," Hemstad says. "But these systems are typified by old technology, bad performance, extremely high cost and old-fashioned, hard-to-use terminals."

A much better approach, Hemstad says, is to offer systems for national security and public safety built on commercial network products, adding extra security such as end-to-end encryption of voice and messaging.