Telefonica wins 5-year Madrid emergency comms contract

Telefonica Soluciones de Informatica y Comunicaciones de Espana won a five-year contract from Madrid City Council to upgrade and manage the central system linking Madrid's emergency services. The system is used by the municipal police, fire department, Madrid's emergency medical services and traffic authorities in Spain's capital.

The contract includes hardware and software upgrades for Madrid's existing digital TETRA system, a terrestrial trunked radio standard used for mission-critical voice and data communications. Telefonica said the work is intended to improve the infrastructure supporting voice and data, enable the expansion of digital mobile radio systems, implement a new network architecture to unify dispatch operations, and allow the recording of communications for critical services. The company said the system enables the immediate coordination of more than 3,000 personnel.

The deal places Telefonica in Madrid's public safety communications infrastructure rather than the consumer eSIM market. TETRA remains widely used by emergency services and other mission-critical users in Europe for secure group communications, while operators and vendors are also developing broadband critical communications systems based on newer mobile network technologies.