Passive Cellular Antenna Vendors Turn Their Focus to Mission-Critical Connectivity

During Critical Communication World (CCW) in Brussels, Ericsson unveiled two new high-performance antennas, Antenna 1005 and Antenna 1006, developed specifically for mission-critical applications such as Public Protection and Disaster Relief (PPDR). These antennas will be purposefully designed and manufactured for low-band spectrum, specifically 700 Megahertz (MHz) (Band 28) and 700 MHz SDL (Band 68), with 2T2R low-band support, increased energy efficiency, and embedded remote management. While this launch is newsworthy, it also indicates a broader industry transformation toward infrastructure specifically designed for public safety and critical networks. While the hardware may resemble their commercial counterparts, these antennas better illustrate security and performance monitoring. For example, Ericsson claims that its Remote Electrical Tilt (RET) software is safeguarded with signing and encryption, protecting the antenna tilt against malicious actors.

Unlike commercial deployments, public safety/critical networks will operate in environments where reliability, coverage, and response time are very important. Low-band support enables broader signal reach and signal penetration, which will benefit connectivity in both rural environments (perhaps where there are no other signals) and suburban environments (where only few carriers have a signal). This low-band support also enables capabilities for remote tuning and monitoring so situations can be dynamically adjusted to be able to provide incident response to emergencies, natural disasters, and outages.

The development of antenna systems designed for mission-critical applications showcases an important shift in the telecommunications landscape. These antennas are not simply different models of older designs, but they exist as customized components designed to meet specifications for operations that are used in emergency services, defense, and other critical infrastructure. One of the most important elements is low-band spectrum optimization, particularly in bands B68 and B28, which are designated in many locations for PPDR networks. These bands can provide both wide-area coverage and better signal penetration through buildings, vegetation, and terrain, characteristics that are greatly advantageous in rural environments, and in disaster areas in urban environments where first responders cannot afford to be without service.

Additionally, network manageability is now a forefront requirement. Antennas equipped with RET and Antenna Monitoring Units (AMUs) enable operators to dynamically optimize performance and identify faults without having to physically visit the site. This optimizes uptime and operational agility, while reducing maintenance costs at a time when operators are managing geographically distributed infrastructure in unpredictable emergency conditions. There is also a resiliency angle to consider. Climate disasters, geopolitical disruption, and national security threats are not diminishing, and public safety networks must be hardened against failure. Passive antenna components alone are no longer sufficient; delivering real-time adaptable network architecture, fast restoration, and consistently reliable coverage is now an expectation.

Alongside efforts by Ericsson in the market, competitors such as Nokia are promoting modular antenna platforms with multi-band capabilities to make deployments easier. Additionally, Huawei is positioning itself as dependable in mission-critical-grade resiliency based on durable design, aligning with certification requirements and reinforcing supply chain security. These developments highlight how mission-critical networks cannot be built on commercial-grade infrastructure alone. These antennas, and the innovations they represent are increasingly being seen not just as supporting components, but as strategic assets enabling a new era of secure and reliable public safety communications.

Nevertheless, there are still several questions and challenges to be answered before these antennas are considered a key revenue driver for vendors. One issue is that deployments will likely be hybrid in nature, as seen with FirstNet in the United States and ESN in the United Kingdom, which typically share infrastructure with commercial networks instead of relying on dedicated antennas. This will limit deployments and the addressable market to niche applications where ultra-high reliability and value are not negotiable, and where dedicated systems are an additional cost with increased operational complexity.

Another complicating factor is spectrum. Mission-critical antennas mostly operate on frequencies that are also commercially licensed, which creates trade-offs between public safety and commercial service priorities. In scenarios where dedicated systems are deployed, spectrum overlap can constrain capacity for commercial services, increase coordination complexity, and introduce policy-level friction, particularly in shared-use or dynamically allocated environments. This further limits the scalability of deployments and emphasizes the need for precise targeting of high-value use cases.

From a Total Addressable Market (TAM) perspective, mission-critical antenna deployments are a small, but high-value opportunity, primarily in sectors such as defense, emergency services, critical infrastructure, transportation, utilities, and industrial use cases, including mining, offshore energy, and oil & gas. Vendors should adopt a verticalized go-to-market strategy that focuses on these types of high-reliability segments, where communications infrastructure is mission critical and investments follow longer, capital-intensive procurement cycles. Vendors must tie use case segmentation to specific operational requirements, such as uninterrupted uplink for body-worn video in policing or secure redundant connectivity for defense command centers, and tailor engagement to the unique budget and procurement models of each vertical. This focused approach maximizes value per deployment by aligning with strategic, mission-critical demands, rather than pursuing broad commercial scale.