Airbus : Defence and Space provides secure communications at the G7 summit in Germany

Airbus Defence and Space's highly secure radio communications technology contributed to the success of security measures implemented during the G7 summit at Schloss Elmau, southern Germany. The conference, held on 7 and 8 June, was attended by seven heads of state and government, together with numerous other prominent politicians from around the world. To ensure the safety of the guests and to support the organisation of the summit, Airbus Defence and Space equipped the security forces at the venue with a customised secure Tetra (terrestrial trunked radio) system.

Over 30,000 police officers, firefighters and security staff were mobilised from May 30th to June 8th and used the Tetra network to guarantee security at this major international event. As part of the German public safety authorities' digital radio network, a specific set up was put in place especially for the conference to ensure full transmission availability at all sensitive locations. The number of group calls rose to 40,000 at the beginning of the conference, when the delegations arrived at the site. On that day almost 18,000 radio terminal were in use. One of the base stations managed the radio communication of up to 7,500 terminals simultaneously.

Airbus Defence and Space had paid specific attention to the region hosting the G7 summit as early as the preparation phase, giving full support to the local Bavarian authorities. Three "stress tests" involving a total of 500 emergency personnel were conducted to demonstrate whether the Tetra radio network could deal with the high levels of traffic and function normally during such a demanding event. The security forces used around 1000 devices simultaneously within the network to test whether all radio messages could get through in a timely manner. The test examined the effects of a high number of security forces moving over large areas and logging into other radio cells.

Airbus Defence and Space is a division of Airbus Group formed by combining the business activities of Cassidian, Astrium and Airbus Military. The new division is Europe's number one defence and space enterprise, the second largest space business worldwide and among the top ten global defence enterprises. It employs more than 38,000 employees generating revenues of approximately €13 billion per year.