The worldwide market for digital mobile radio

Citation

(1999), "The worldwide market for digital mobile radio", Microelectronics International, Vol. 16 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/mi.1999.21816cab.016

The worldwide market for digital mobile radio

The worldwide market for digital mobile radio

Keywords IMS, Radio

At the start of 1998 there were only an estimated 33,870 digital mobile radio users in Europe. However, according to a new report published by the global communication research company IMS, this number is forecast to increase exponentially during the next five years.

Figure 1 shows that the vast majority of the users at the beginning of 1998 were using systems that complied with the Tetrapol standard and a small proportion were using digital EDACS systems. Although Tetrapol will benefit from the explosion in the number of digital users forecast over the period 1998 to 2003, the vast majority of new digital mobile radio users are projected to opt for the Tetra standard.

At the start of 2003, it is forecast that 79.9 per cent of all digital mobile radio users in Europe will be using networks that comply with the Tetra standard; 19.3 per cent are projected to be using Tetrapol networks and 0.8 per cent are projected to be using EDACS networks.

There are a number of key drivers of this explosion in the use of digital mobile radio, such as the launch of digital PAMR networks, the launch of wide area/nationwide digital emergency service networks, growth in the overall mobile radio user base, digital PMR frequency allocation, a user requirement for increased mobile radio services and falling prices for digital equipment.

In 1998 the top supplier of digital mobile radio equipment in Europe was Matra Nortel Communications with its Tetrapol equipment. Other key players at this time included Nokia (Tetra), Motorola (Tetra), Simoco (Tetra), Marconi Communications (Tetra), Ericsson (EDACS) and Siemens (Tetrapol).

Figure 1European digital mobile radio user installed base in 1998 and 2003 split by standard