The Federal Agency for Digital Radio for Public Safety Authorities and Organizations (BDBOS), headquartered in Berlin, is the central service provider for operational communications within Germany’s public safety infrastructure. Since its founding in 2007, it has been responsible for the deployment, operation, and further development of the nationwide BOS digital radio network. The network, based on the TETRA standard, is considered the largest of its kind worldwide and enables more than 1.1 million users from the police, fire departments, and emergency services to communicate in a secure and highly available manner. At INTERSCHUTZ 2026 in Hanover, the agency is now demonstrating the next stage of evolution: the transition to mobile broadband communication.

The Path to Next-Generation Digital Radio

The focus of the trade show presentation is the transition to modern broadband solutions that go far beyond simple voice communication. The demands of modern operations have increased: Whether it’s messenger services for rapid information exchange, access to complex databases, the transmission of situational and search data, or telemedicine applications—digital tools have become indispensable in the daily operations of law enforcement and emergency services. Controlling drones and live video transmissions from incident sites also require a high-performance network infrastructure. The BDBOS is therefore working together with the federal and state governments on a highly secure broadband infrastructure that provides these data-intensive services at the same high quality level as the existing digital radio systems.

Security and Sovereignty as Non-Negotiable Criteria

A key aspect of the new development is maintaining the proven quality standards of the current TETRA network. For the BDBOS, Germany’s digital sovereignty is of central importance in this regard. The future broadband network must guarantee nationwide availability while offering maximum resilience against external influences and comprehensive cybersecurity. Only through a proprietary, controlled infrastructure can it be ensured that mission-critical applications function stably at all times, even in crisis situations. This makes modern mobile data communication an indispensable pillar of public safety.

Innovation Through the KoPa_45 Funding Program

To drive technical development forward, the BDBOS relies on close collaboration with research and academia. A central component of this strategy is the KoPa_45 innovation funding program, which is financed by funds from the German government’s COVID-19 economic stimulus package. In cooperation with the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Homeland Affairs, the program supports 26 projects involving more than 50 partners. The research areas are diverse and cover all levels of modern network architecture.

These include the development of mission-supporting applications and modern end devices such as smart devices, as well as their efficient management. Another focus is on stable network operation, transitions between different networks, and so-called device-to-device (D2D) communication, which enables direct communication between end devices.

Real-world testing in state-of-the-art campus networks

To ensure that the developed solutions perform effectively under real-world conditions, the BDBOS provides research projects with a specialized broadband development environment. A wide variety of scenarios can be tested and optimized in two flexible LTE/5G campus networks. These test environments make it possible to ensure the interoperability of new services before they go into operational use. With these results, BDBOS aims to pave the way at INTERSCHUTZ 2026 for a nationwide, mission-critical, broadband digital radio system that is capable of meeting the demands of the coming decades.

To the Clip (German only)