Airbus TETRAPOL

TETRAPOL is Airbus's proprietary narrowband digital radio standard, developed originally by Matra Communications and now maintained exclusively by Airbus Critical Communications. It operates on FDMA (frequency-division multiple access) with 10 kHz or 12.5 kHz channel spacing across 380–400 MHz and 440–470 MHz frequency bands, giving it strong building penetration and long-range propagation characteristics suited to wide-area national deployments. Each base station covers up to 40 km and supports up to 2,500 registered users; a single core network scales to 100 base stations, making the platform capable of serving very large user populations across national territories. End-to-end encryption is standard, with each user organisation managing its own encryption keys for full operational independence. The system supports group calls, one-to-one calls, emergency priority communication, geo-localisation, and standalone sub-network operation when connectivity to the core is interrupted. TETRAPOL is the platform of choice for national gendarmerie and police forces across France, Spain, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Mexico — 68 live networks protecting approximately 460 million people. For aviation and transport environments, TETRAPOL provides a proven backbone for airside and perimeter security, ground-operations coordination, and inter-agency communications where interference resilience and long-range coverage take precedence over high data throughput. Airbus has committed to supporting existing TETRAPOL deployments through at least 2035 and offers a controlled evolution path to broadband via Tactilon Agnet hybrid gateways.