City of Jeddah makes shift from analog to digital radio systems through Hytera's DMR Tier 3 Trunking Solution

Municipality utilizes new technology to reinforce efforts aimed at making city cleaner and sustainable

Hytera, the world's leading Professional Mobile Radio communications solution provider, has revealed that its DMR Tier 3 trunking solutions have been installed and adopted for use by the Municipality of Jeddah as part of the efforts to shift from using an analog radio system to a more efficient and reliable digital radio solution. The shift is aimed at reinforcing communication interoperability among the municipality’s outsourced facilities management (FM) based companies that have been tasked with ensuring the cleanliness and sustainability of the city.

According to Municipality officials, the city decided on outsourcing its cleaning and other FM based requirements to local companies. The Municipality awarded five FM based companies with nine individual contracts to maintain cleanliness of identified sectors in the city. Under the terms of these contracts, the five companies are assigned particular zones to maintain while one company is tasked to monitor and report the progress to the municipality.

One major challenge arising from this arrangement was the use of analog-based radio communications between the municipality and the five companies. The old radio system posed problems like limited coverage, poor voice quality, channel jam, limited data service and the lack of dispatching functions. The Jeddah Municipality decided on making the shift from an analog-based system to a more modern digital radio solution.

Looking to address the issue, Hytera, through its local partner, presented the Municipality with a state-of-the-art DMR Trunking solution. Hytera DMR Trunking Pro has been developed in compliance with the ETSI standard, Digital Mobile Radio (DMR). The solution offers sophisticated voice transmission and clearer dispatcher communication. Hytera DMR Trunking Pro is powered by an IP-based system architecture and centralized networking system, which makes it particularly suited for utility companies, operation centres or industrial enterprises. Committing to support the Municipality’s efforts towards sustainability, the company implemented a package that included the installation of four Base Stations with 10 carriers to cover the whole Jeddah city; more than 500 pieces of mobile radios for dispatched vehicles of the six companies and ultra-thin fully-featured X1p radio provided to the management.

During a recent visit to the Jeddah Cleaning Company, the consolidated entity handling the operations of the five FM-based companies, Jeddah Mayor Hani Abu Ras met with representatives of Hytera and its local partner, where he was given a briefing on the newly installed DMR Tier 3 trunking solution. The Mayor was also shown a product demonstration on the key capabilities of the new radio system.

“We are very pleased with the positive results gained from using our DMR trunking solution. Jeddah Municipality has reported that they are happy with the system as it has provided them with good, seamless, safe & reliable communications, which has greatly improved their working productivity and efficiency. Hytera continues to live up to its commitment of providing its customers with world class fully efficient digital radio solutions that are designed not only to help improve communications but to also drive in better operations,” concluded Dawud Liu, KSA Country Manager, Hytera. 

Established in 1993 in Shenzhen, China, Hytera operates on a global basis and develops radio systems and solutions that are in compliance with set international standards like DMR, TETRA and MPT-1327. The company offers a wide portfolio of customized communication solutions to government, public security, utility, transportation, enterprise & business for higher organizational efficiency. To date, Hytera has established a global sales network with more than 20 subsidiaries and offices in USA, UK, Germany, Australia, Brazil, etc. and ensures around 15% of revenue for R&D to keep pushing the limit leading and mature technologies. Hytera's five R&D facilities are located in Shenzhen, Harbin and Nanjing in China and Hannover and Flensburg in Germany have created a state-of-the-art platform for digital technology research, product design and application development.