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Britain's Fire & Rescue Services go live on Airwave
Airwave announce that a number of Fire & Rescue Services (FRS) across the country are reaping the benefits of improved communications following the rollout of the new Airwave digital radio system.
Services that have already gone live on the Airwave network include County Durham and Darlington, Tyne and Wear, South Yorkshire, Northumberland and Derbyshire. Radios have now been installed on around 1,287 vehicles including cars and high-volume pump appliances and rollout to the remaining FRS is scheduled to be completed by the spring of 2010.
The introduction of Airwave’s digital radio network to the FRS is part of the Firelink programme, initiated to improve communications within the service across England, Scotland and Wales. The move follows the successful deployment of the Airwave service to Great Britain’s police forces and many of the ambulance services.
Airwave’s digital radio network is providing immediate benefits to those FRS that are now using the new service including clearer voice quality, greater network coverage and security encryption designed to make eavesdropping impossible. Additionally, once the rollout is complete FRS will further benefit from the ability to interoperate with any other FRS in the country – an invaluable tool for coordinating large-scale events and incidents. The Airwave service also allows FRS to communicate with the police and ambulance command centres as required.
John Lewis, General Manager, Fire and Civil Resilience, said, “The rollout of the Airwave service to Britain’s FRS is now really gathering pace and we look forward to having the remaining regions online soon. This is a major step forward in our goal to have all of the nations’ public safety organisations on the same resilient, secure network. Great Britain is already well ahead of the rest of the world and once all of the rollouts are complete we will be truly global leaders.”
One of the FRS to have already gone live on the Airwave network is in Tyne and Wear and its Chief Fire Officer Iain Bathgate commented, "We are delighted that all Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service fire appliances have now been fitted with the new digital communications radio equipment. The equipment strengthens our ability to respond to major incidents, improves the clarity of our voice communications and is part of our continued drive to deliver a modern and effective service to our local communities."
