Tetra vs LTE?

[LTE_Liam]

Hello from Australia,

I am trying to model a communication network over a mine site and am wondering what the advantages and disadvantages of each technology are?
From what I have read about Tetra it seems like it would be the better option.

There will be approx 20 mobile cells (30km/h)
The pit is steep and quite large
Data in the form of images is being sent every minute
Voice communication over radio is being used between the vehicle operators
Messages will also need to be sent to the vehicle operators

I am a bit of a newbie so any input would be highly appreciated.

Cheers :)

[byja]

Hi there mate,

I'm having hard time understanding your requirements. So you have 20 users moving at 30km/h max, I assume it's dumper/haul trucks or similar. You need voice but you also need data, you're sending images every minute, so it's not something bandwidth consuming.

Now if it were a voice-only system that you need, then you would be ok with a DMR system, not TETRA (no need to spend a lot of money), you could go with ********'s MOTOTRBO for example. While TETRA does provide packet data, bandwidth and implementation are not really the main thing for such a system. So if data is important for you, and you want something more down the road (maybe a dashcam in each truck that will send video back to a recorder/operations center, or anything similar), then it's better for you to go with LTE. There are simple LTE solutions available right now that will, on budget, deliver most of what you need.

However, if you decide to go with LTE, pay closer attention to the subscriber itself than the rest of the system. Make sure that you get something that is rugged, suitable for use in such environment, and most importantly, that it's available in whatever frequency band you can use.

Can you describe in simple english, and not techspeak, what exactly features you want, and how you want your guys to use it? I suppose you need simple push-to-talk voice comm between them, do you need to make separate talkgroups? Any need for encryption? Any location services? How do you share these images, each user to one central operator, or between themselves?
What are your concerns about this pit, coverage, or functionalities?

Feel free to contact me if you need more help with this.