Socioeconomic benefits as criteria in the valuation of broadband mobile services for public safety and security

Public Protection and Disaster Relief (PPDR) agencies are in need of mobile broadband (BB) data communication services. So far, the existing PPDR mobile service has been provided utilising mainly narrowband (NB) technologies and, therefore, the services of commercial networks are already used for non-mission-critical data communication. These commercial networks could be upgraded to fulfil functionality and security requirements, but the question has been raised as to whether those networks are able to fulfil availability requirements. The purpose of the study is to identify the most feasible alternative for a BB PPDR mobile service and use Finland as a verification case. Socioeconomic benefits are used as a common measure for making the valuation of governmental infra services. In the thesis, four different network variants in five Finnish provinces are analysed: 1) dedicated; 2) commercial, but fulfilling PPDR requirements; 3) a hybrid of them or; 4) existing NB + commercial best-effort network. The net benefits of the alternatives are defined - each province having a different population density (3.3 - 2785 persons/km2). According to the analysis, the solution creating the most socioeconomic benefits would be a hybrid network where the PPDR mobile service is implemented using the commercial networks as platforms in sparsely-populated areas (population density up to about 50...130 persons/km2 up) and, after that point, the dedicated network would be used in densely-populated areas – the exact threshold point depending on local circumstances. The same nationwide fee for mobile users in commercial networks means that the users are subsidised in sparsely-populated areas. This is the main reason why the commercial network seems to be more feasible in rural areas – and the dedicated network in urban areas. NB PPDR networks will be in use longer than expected and using the "Five-steps" approach, a smooth upgrade from NB to BB can be performed. Moreover, the timeboxed utilisation of existing NB PPDR networks, in parallel with commercial best-effort networks, in certain sparsely-populated areas, would increase socioeconomic benefits. Furthermore, when the PPDR BB mobile service is based on a commercial network, and if the part of that network is still based on 2G/3G technology, the tight voice call-setup time can not be fulfilled in the 2G/3G network. The call-setup requirement can be solved e.g. using the existing NB PPDR network in parallel in those areas until the whole network is updated to 4G/5G technology.