The public safety network Virve continues to serve while being renewed during the 2020s
Virve is used by authorities such as Finnish Rescue Services, Police of Finland, social and healthcare services, Finnish Defence Forces, Finnish Border Guard, customs, emergency response centre and municipalities. Virve is also used in other security critical operations, such as energy and telecommunications, rail traffic, security guarding and valuables transfer.
The Nordic public safety networks, comprising the Finnish Virve, Swedish Rakel and Norwegian Nødnett, are the first TETRA networks in the world linked together technically in 2019.
Next generation Virve broadband services
Finnish mission critical authoratives and other safety operators will be provided with a variety of mobile broadband services during the 2020s. We are taking a customer-oriented approach to developing next generation Virve 2 services.
In the new model, we act as a service operator, cooperating with our partners to offer more extensive and efficient services to authorities and other operators critical for the security of supply. During the migration phase, the present Virve network will work seamlessly alongside the new services until the end of 2028.
Read more about the development of broadband Virve
Virve 2 Mobile strategy
ERILLISVERKOT AI STRATEGY
Virve 2 MC RFI summary of responses
VIRVE 2 DEVICES RFI SUMMARY OF RESPONSES
Programme schedule
- Erillisverkot Group selected as the operator of the mission critical mobile broadband service in 2018.
- Ericsson selected as the provider of key information systems and Elisa as the provider of the radio network in 2020.
- Data service was available to first customers by the end of 2022.
- The procurement of broadband Virve compatible devices has begun in 2023.
- Voice service available in 2023.
- Virve broadband services approved for operative use and ready to be deployed in 2024.
- Migration period starts by testing 2023. The current version of Virve will function alongside the new network. Development of services continues.
- The procurement of standardised mission critical services (e.g. group voice and video calls) will start later.
The users of the network will be provided with more up-to-date situational awareness as part of their daily work as the current Virve services are complemented with broadband mobile services such as image and video.
The new services and prioritised Virve subscriptions will enhance current uses and enable clear, versatile and understandable communications, for example, between a situation room and people working in the field. In the future, the evolving 5G network and related technologies will also enable new solutions in public safety communication.
Virve 2 is created in cooperation with trusted partners
- Erillisverkot together with their partners will build public safety network Virve 2. Our partners in the first phase are Elisa and Ericsson.
- Erillisverkot will be the statutory service operator for Virve 2 operating the Core network as well as producing services for it. The 5G Core network used by network is provided by Ericsson and the 4 G/5G radio service by Elisa.