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Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs chooses Airwave in £60 million contract
Airwave, the UK’s public safety communications service provider, today announced that it has been selected by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to provide its Criminal Investigation and Detection teams with digital radio communications.
Airwave, the UK’s public safety communications service provider, today announced that it has been selected by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to provide its Criminal Investigation and Detection teams with digital radio communications. The £60 million contract will run for 15 years and will involve the rollout of around 4,000 connections as well the establishment of a control room. HMRC staff using the Airwave service will benefit from increased coverage as well as the ability to interoperate securely with other public safety organisations on the Airwave network.
HMRC’s Law Enforcement arm is charged with investigating and detecting crimes involving tax fraud, smuggling and related issues. Its duties involve providing the strategic, tactical and operational intelligence needed for the detection and prosecution of individuals in breach of UK law with regards to tax and duties. For HMRC officers to carry out their duties, it is vital that their radio network is secured to ensure mission-critical communications are not subject to eavesdropping. Airwave’s radio network allows all voice and data traffic carried over it to be securely encrypted, making it impossible for third parties to listen in to communications.
Stephen Walton HMRC’s Project Manager, commented: “Security was always going to be a major factor when it came to choosing our radio network. However, security was not the only criteria. We were also keen to have a network that could provide coverage across as wide an area as possible.”
The Airwave network was built with coverage in mind. Its base stations are positioned to provide coverage in 99% of Great Britain’s land mass including all major and minor roads, low-lying and forested rural areas and many remote coastal regions. The Airwave service can provide any level of interoperable communications. The most common type of interoperability is the establishment and exchange of ‘talkgroups’. To the end user, a talkgroup closely resembles the radio channels used by earlier radio systems and allows users operating on a shared talkgroup to hear transmissions as an ‘all-informed’ group. With interoperability in place, HMRC is enabled to communicate with any user of the Airwave network including the police and port authorities, as may be necessary in the prosecution of its duties.
John O’Malley the HMRC Client Manager at Airwave, commented: “HMRC plays a vitally important role in the detection of a wide variety of crimes and we are confident that our network will allow the Law Enforcement part of HMRC to carry out their duties more effectively and securely. The Airwave network has already proved its worth in the investigation of crimes through deployments to all of Great Britain’s police forces and we are sure that this record was a significant factor in HMRC’s decision to select our service.”
