Softil, the world’s leading mission-critical communications (MCX) enabler, today issues its annual outlook for the evolving MCX industry covering the 2025 period.

“The MCX industry has already built significant momentum, and this will accelerate in 2025 with significant players using our open standards and fully interoperable MCX enabling technologies,” says Pierre Hagendorf, Softil’s CEO. “The industry will continue to use the life-changing technology to broaden its outreach in public safety agencies and extend its functionality and usage in MCX and FRMCS deployments.”

Specifics:

MCX Adoption Accelerates

MCX has built a substantial market presence to date around the world and prime examples are the live services in North America on multiple networks (AT&T FirstNet, Southern Linc Critical Linc, TELUS) and in South Korea (SafeNet). The UK Home Office is about to announce a new ESN MCX vendor. In Germany, BDBOS is spearheading further development of MCX technologies supported by significant grant allocations. Multiple MCX for Rail projects are under way in Australia and India. In Sweden, MSB has its MCX program funded and now is engaging in a multitude of MCX research projects.

In France, broadband mission-critical communications played a vital role during the Paris Olympics 2024, enabling first responders to rely on the power of MCX, delivered as a part of nationwide rollout of broadband public safety network RRF by ACMOSS.

Overall, MCX has built significant momentum globally and we expect this trend to accelerate in 2025.

MCX in Utilities is on the Rise

Softil expects that, in the coming years, we will see utility companies strategically advancing into mission-critical communications over LTE and 5G. Governing factors:

• MCX technology is sufficiently mature and available as is Private LTE and 5G.

• Utility companies typically own their spectrum or can license it

• Utility companies are nimble enough to deploy technology at pace

We can expect a multitude of new MCX service offerings in 2025. Using the Southern Linc Critical Linc MCX service as an example (Southern Linc is a part of the Southern Company, the utility company), Softil sees new MCX services being utilized in 2025 by state police, utility workers, and school buses, to name a few.

MCVideo Advancing

MCVideo first appeared in 3GPP release 14 and now Release 19 is almost complete. Video holds tremendous value (a picture is worth a thousand words), but it is bandwidth-hungry so networks should be up to the task to properly support it. With 5G standalone and 5G Advanced, we are finally getting where we need to be. Given ample bandwidth, video will become the king of communications.  We should also take into account the proliferation of video sources – street cameras, bodycams, CCTV, traffic cameras, drones and even satellites – public safety is ready to embrace video wholeheartedly, so we should expect to see a rise in MCVideo deployments, helping save lives and improving the efficiency of professional user communications.

Drones and robotics advancements will be significant

Here we are unmercifully lumping together some of the biggest technological advancements that can help first responders with all day-to-day tasks and emergencies. Drones are now capable of staying in the air for much longer, remain connected, send over real-time video and sensor data and operate instruments. “Drone as a First Responder” is not just a catchphrase – especially with the addition of AI and analytic capabilities … a drone can use the full power of MCX and be a full member of the emergency response team. We will not see a Robocop on the streets tomorrow, but robotic capabilities enjoy the same pace of advancement as drones, and we will see more of them in the coming years.

Satellites/NTN to connect the unconnected

As the world relies more and more upon mobile networks to be available anytime anywhere, satellites (often referred to as NTN, non-terrestrial networks) are an indelible part of ubiquitous coverage. A number of factors are already in play. First, just the sheer quantity of satellites already in orbit, both LEO and geostationary, is already substantial and increasing by the minute. Satellite technological advancements are not yet capable of the transmission of 4k video in real time but are good enough for powering reliable voice and data and supporting secure location services. We can expect satellite communications to be more impactful as 5G NTN aspects of standards get better developed and networks shift towards 5G SA.

MCX direct mode is getting closer

If the MCX puzzle is called “broadband group communications,” it will never be solved unless the key piece is there – direct mode communications, a.k.a. device to device (D2D) communications.

In any group operations – in public safety, emergency response, utilities, and transportations, for example – there will be always be times when a network is not available, or the use of the network is undesirable. To address those special situations, we need to be able to communicate directly between users, maintaining our group identities, prioritize communications and ensure full security. In the past, in the 4G LTE world, a viable direct mode communication solution was simply not available. In the 5G world, we now have 5G-Sidelink, and the implementation of MCX direct mode is now a definite possibility based on interoperable Softil enabled technology.

We are at the verge of commercially available 5G-Sidelink capabilities in next generation chipsets, and we expect them to be available within the next two years; 5G-Sidelink enabled devices will follow as manufacturers seek new market opportunities.

AI and MCX – an unavoidable combination

It might be brave but not wise to ignore an elephant in the room. AI is this proverbial elephant whether we want it or not. AI applications for public safety communications are vast and truly multi-leveled. AI can be applied starting at the network level and integrated with OpenRAN to enable optimized access and traffic prioritization for first responders.

AI can play an even bigger role in dispatch and event operations. For example, in a given fire response situation, AI can analyze potential scenarios of the fire spread depending on weather, materials involved and structures. AI can make suggestions in emergency medical care scenarios until a doctor is reached. It can also assist in possible suspect pursuits, predicting possible moves.

All of these possible use cases are within a millionth of the percentage of the actual AI capabilities. No matter what we think of AI, it is here to stay and it will be very impactful – expect to hear lots of exciting use cases next year and in the foreseeable future.

TAK + MCX = bright future for public safety

Situational awareness is a critical capability for first responders. TAK/ATAK/CivTAK technology stemming from DoD work might be the best situational awareness tool available for first responders.

TAK can assemble all situational awareness data in real time with or without a network and make it continuously available to first responders on any Android or iOS device. By adding communication capability to the wealth of TAK’s situational awareness data, first responders will have the same MCX broadband capabilities – MCPTT, MCVideo and MCData. Today, TAK and MCX live apart in their own parallel worlds – we should expect this to start changing in 2025 and first integrations to appear.

FRMCS momentum will continue growing

Of course, FRMCS (Future Railway Mobile Communication System) is all about trains and is inevitable as aging GSM-R needs to be replaced. The FRMCS project has the full attention of the European Union as a whole, so the project can go only one way – forward. FRMCS is relying on MCX as its core layer, so all advances of FRMCS push MCX technology forward. Accounting for slight delays, FRMCS version 2.0 has completed enough for the testing project called MORANE-2 to start in 2025 and advance to version 3, becoming the first deployable edition.

MCX Certification – guaranteeing the future 

It is important to know that the device you are about to deploy in your public safety network – the first responder’s lifeline – is working and performing exactly as it says on the tin. GCF MCX device certification arrived in 2024 with the first certified solutions now available with first mission-critical operators joining GCF to take part in MCX certification work. We should expect more MCX certified solutions to appear in 2025 and beyond.

Abstract

The MCX world continues to evolve helping first responders to go about their daily tasks in a more efficient manner and to better handle emergencies and save more lives in the process. Softil supports the innovations of MCX manufacturers through its pioneering enabling technologies, which developers adopt to launch new MCX solutions to market in the shortest timeframe.