Cross standard system for future public safety and emergency communications

The public safety community shows an increased interest in standardized communication and information systems that can support reliable technology transparent multimedia communication during multinational emergency operations. It is very important today to introduce a public safety communication system that is able to use all available means of communications, including rapidly deployable networks, to cope with large scale disasters or/and to implement preventive measures. The article provides a survey of existing public safety communications systems, discusses their evolution, current status of research activities and presents the idea of a cross standard communication system (CSS). It provides an overview of the key research problems in CSS development.