Motorola Solutions has a history of innovation behind it. It has driven the advancement of global security for almost a century, from communications on the Apollo missions to the analysis that powers up smart cities. Its products have always led to establishing modern security ecosystems, in ever-changing markets, through varied channels; hence the relationship with the Vatican Gendarmerie, a user as prestigious as it is complex.

The Vatican Gendarmerie Corps (Gendarmerie Vaticana) is the Police Corps of the Vatican City State, responsible for guaranteeing public order, as well as carrying out intelligence, judicial police and traffic control functions in Vatican City State and its many extraterritorial appurtenances, such as the Papal Palace in Castel Gandolfo. Together with the Swiss Guards, the force is also responsible for safeguarding the Vatican and protecting the Pope.

The Vatican Gendarmerie has so far used an analogue radio system from Motorola Solutions, later switching to a 9-site MOTOTRBO IP Site Connect system in 2008. A few years later, a multisite Capacity Plus system was added, for the management of services such as health, traffic police, fire brigade, the Basilica and the Vatican Museums. The system is a single-site digital multi-access configuration with up to 1,200 users in a single location.

With the growth of network use, most services, with the exception of museums, switched to a Capacity Max system that supports up to 250 sites with a maximum of 3,000 users per site: an application scalable according to evolving needs.

However, at this time, the Vatican is looking to incorporate the rest of the Capacity Plus system into Capacity Max, to increase operational efficiency and safety, as well as reducing maintenance and management of the system.

Capacity Max offers additional useful functions for the armed force, says Inspector Giuseppe Sbei: "We are very satisfied with the performance and capacity of all our MOTOTRBO systems, but Capacity Max offers even more capacity and some really useful additional features, such as call queuing and caller priority, which allows emergency calls to always be received, even if the system is fully loaded, and enhanced end-to-end call encryption."

Integration will begin shortly and the Corps has also studied how those travelling with the Pope, or on State business, can remain reliably connected when outside Vatican City and its extraterritorial areas.

After all, the Capacity Max architecture is optimised for high performance, high efficiency and easy scalability. It enables instant and reliable voice and data communications, improved decision-making and seamless coordination across a single campus or large-scale operation. Powerful management tools offer complete control of the system, all from a single workstation.

The current systems, all installed and configured by LATEL-COM technicians, comprise 11 sites. These include St. Peter's Square in Vatican City, but also other extraterritorial locations in Rome, such as the Papal Basilica of St. Paul's and Santa Maria Maggiore, and those outside Rome, e.g. the Papal Palace of Castel Gandolfo and Santa Maria di Galeria; each location is connected via fibre optics with the 24/7 Operations Room in Vatican City. In total, 39 repeaters and over 1100 portable radios with headsets, chargers and spare batteries (the fire brigade uses ATEX handsets) with emergency buttons are installed, and some have activated Lone Worker and Man Down functions.

A number of mobile radios are also in use, both in the control room and in vehicles, particularly ambulances and fire trucks. The Operations Room uses TRBOnet PLUS software on each system for voice transmission, call recording, messaging and the GPS tracking of personnel.

Mission-critical systems, which have been implemented with full redundancy and are maintained and supported by LATEL-COM, are used extensively.

Twenty conversation groups are already configured on the Capacity Max system, which will grow to over 40 with the transfer of the groups currently on the Capacity Plus system. One of the points particularly appreciated by the technicians of the Vatican Gendarmerie, who work closely with LATEL-COM, is the possibility to control, manage and deactivate the radios centrally, via the MOTOTRBO Radio Management software.

MOTOROLA AND LATEL- COM have been working closely with the Vatican, in particular with the Vatican Gendarmerie, for many years. They have helped and seen their systems grow and develop through Motorola Solutions' new technology offers.