Airbus will use next week’s Critical Communications World (CCW) 2026 in London to introduce a set of extensions to Agnet, its mission-critical communications platform, in a move aimed at widening the operational capabilities available to the public safety, transport and industrial users that depend on the system.
The event runs from June 16 to 18 at ExCeL London and ranks as the sector’s largest annual gathering for mission-critical communications. Airbus said the Agnet additions are designed to expand how and where the platform can be used, with a particular focus on keeping field teams connected in the demanding conditions where consumer networks tend to fail.
Agnet is Airbus’s 3GPP standards-based mission-critical suite, supporting mission-critical push-to-talk (MCPTT), video (MCVideo) and data (MCData) over broadband and satellite links. It is built for professional users — emergency services, utilities, oil and gas operators and transport networks — who need guaranteed, secure communication rather than the best-effort connectivity of consumer mobile apps.
Much of Airbus’s recent work on the platform has centred on resilience and coverage. Its Agnet Direct extension, launched in late 2025 and field-proven on France’s Réseau Radio du Futur national network, lets users keep talking when 4G and 5G coverage is unavailable by pairing a smartphone running Agnet with a smart remote speaker microphone, switching automatically to a direct-mode fallback when the network drops. A separate Agnet over Satcom capability uses satellite connectivity to extend 4G and 5G coverage into remote areas.
Interoperability with legacy radio is another priority. Through dedicated gateways and a 3GPP-compliant Interworking Function, Agnet can connect to narrowband systems such as TETRA, Tetrapol and DMR — important for agencies midway through the long migration from traditional radio networks to broadband.
The expansion fits a roadmap Airbus Defence and Space set out for 2026, which prioritises the continued operation and upgrade of existing TETRA networks, an accelerated migration to broadband, and the convergence of terrestrial and satellite communications. The company has also been folding artificial intelligence into Agnet, using it for data analysis, predictive insights and automated workflows intended to help control rooms and first responders act proactively rather than reactively.
For Airbus, CCW has long served as the stage to argue that mission-critical communications can match the flexibility of commercial broadband without sacrificing the reliability that emergency and industrial users demand. The new Agnet extensions, due to be detailed at the show, are the latest step in that pitch. CCW 2026 opens on June 16.
