The following illustrates the 3 dimensions to the iterative development of BroadEU.net testbeds and trials

• Component procurement – enabling nationally hosted, EU connected MCX services.
• Technical maturity – assessment and testing of the technical solution, provide feedback to contractors to improve and build technical maturity in the technology.
• Operational procedures – involving the responder community to not-only evaluate the technology, but to develop new operational procedures that will be necessary for cross border and pan-European cooperation.

BroadEU.net seeks connectivity innovation by bringing an iterative conversation between technological, operational procedures, and testing.

Our approach is to procure mission critical mobile broadband testbeds that are operated nationally. This goes beyond past practice of BroadWay and State of the Art because previous pilots were fully controlled by the developers, where the buyers did not have an opportunity to engage the operation of these.

Here, practitioners would not only be able to drive the operation of the testbeds, but they would also use them for their own investigation into MCX technologies, informing national planning towards adoption of Mobile Broadband Mission Critical Services (MCX); also informing EU policy towards harmonisation of MCX installation and usage towards realisation of the EU Critical Communication System (EUCCS).

As the BroadEU.net pilots multiply, so do the real-world mission critical capabilities moving towards, through these activities, a pan-European testbed and practice.

These testbeds will aim to work with a trial structure that is built upon a mix of live-use of the new system in (non-critical) day-to-day activities with experimental use in prefabricated scenario-defined trials that explore the unique and intense challenges of crisis situations

We will endeavour to have end-users engaging with systems in their live activities on a regular basis, feeding back insights, challenges, and new requirements in an ongoing matter

Only when a critical situation emerges will they revert to their tested and trusted existing systems. In this way, the testbeds will be initiated with the first trial.

Each subsequent trial will act, not as a new testbed, but as an intervention point in the process adding more national MCX testbeds.

This will drive new organisational requirements, governance insights, as well as operational, technological, and service capacities and providers, creating in effect one big trial with multiple pilot trial interventions.

These will support evaluation and validation of additive and alternative requirements.