Designed to provide secure and confi­dential communications network which can handle far more traffic than the current equipment, the new TETRA system will provide radio contact between police and fire officers, as well as within each service. The system has been set up in such a way that it will be possible for other departments, such as prison services and customs, to join it in future. TETRA is rolled out: The ‘big push’ started in November, 2005, when Firelink, the UK’s procuring body for the national communications contract, awarded O2 Airwave the contract to equip all fire and rescue services across England with a new resilient and secure voice and data communications service.
O2 Airwave uses Motorola TETRA (Terrestrial Trunked Radio) technology. TETRA is an open digital trunked radio standard defined by the European Telecommunications Standardisation Institute (ETSI) to meet the needs of the most demanding professional mobile radio users.
“Motorola has been awarded more than 210 TETRA contracts in 57 countries and its level three encryption security will provide the highest level of secure TETRA communications technology commercially available today,” commented an industry spokesman. Government Fire Minister, Jim Fitzpatrick, publicly commented: “We are investing heavily in the fire and rescue service to ensure that it is able to meet the challenges of the modern world. This is a major milestone in achieving this. “Firelink will transform the current arrange­ments and give the service, for the very first time, the same digital radio system across the country ­a system that will enable firefighters to commu­nicate not only between fire and rescue services but also with the other emergency services, regardless of location.”
Embracing the technology:
The Airwave service has been taken up by 182 Public Safety Organisations including all police forces throughout the UK and all Ambulance Trusts in England. The UK’s Fire and Rescue Services have effectively become the third major emergency service on the network. Airwave is already one of the largest public safety networks in the world and provides extensive coverage with encrypted digital communications. With other UK Airwave users including the Highways Agency, MOD and Immigration Service, the potential number of UK users is now well in excess of a quarter of a million.
Jeff Parris, Vice President for O2 Airwave, commented: “Airwave itself is a sophisticated communications system for the emergency and other public safety (‘blue light’) services. It will help make Britain safer by facilitating more effective and efficient ways of working for the emergency services and providing an opportunity for more ‘joined up’ public safety services.
“For the first time ever, emergency services can have radio coverage whenever and wherever they need it - even in radio ‘cold spots’. Airwave will enable emergency services to communicate seamlessly regardless of location for the first time ever.
“Because all Airwave communications are encrypted, they cannot be scanned or monitored by outsiders. The network is highly resilient. The system enables both voice and data communica­tions and gives the emergency services wide flexi­bility in choosing how to communicate.”
A trend-setter:
In 2002 Lancashire Fire & Rescue Service became the UK’s first fire brigade to put Airwave into service. The decision followed hard on the heels of the UK Ministry of Defence’s adoption of the Airwave service as the ‘de facto’ military standard for secure UK mainland radio communications.
Five years ago Lancashire Fire & Rescue Service was quick to spot the advantages of Airwave over its existing analogue radio system having participated in the extensive trials and testing of the system, before the adoption by Lancashire police ­the first police force to go live with the system. Dave Thompson, radio replacement projects
manager for Lancashire Fire & Rescue Service, commented: “Since first seeing the Airwave trials with the police, we were keen to share the benefits of using the same technology. The system allowed us to capitalise on technological advances, enabling us to develop and add to its capabilities in years to come.
“In addition, by utilising the network built for Lancashire police, both the police and fire services were able to take advantage of economies of scale rather than having to fund the cost of managing a stand-alone network.”
The Airwave service offered many benefits including greatly improved levels of coverage and also an extremely high clarity of voice communi­cation.
Key to the fire service’s decision to adopt Airwave was the interoperability the system offers between emergency services. Airwave is now available to all 180 fire tenders at Lancashire’s 40 fire stations.
Once the police and fire services in Lancashire were using Airwave, the service helped them improve their effectiveness at incidents where both services were in attendance, by allowing them to easily communicate and co-ordinate their actions.
Lancashire Fire & Rescue Service is headquar­tered in Preston. It covers a population of around 1.4m people. Figures for 1998/99 period showed that it handled nearly 42,000 calls for assistance.
What is the FiReControl project?
The second part of this technological revolution affecting the UK fire services lies in the provision of fire control rooms. Currently, there are 46 fire control rooms in England, based at local fire brigades.
The FiReControl project is working to move from the existing system of control rooms into 9 new amalgamated Regional Control Centres.
“The project was initiated by the UK Government in early 2004, and is targeted for completion by the end of 2009.
Running in parallel with this, much work is taking place to help each region prepare for the move to their Regional Control Centre,” a spokesman tokld FIRE & RESCUE.
“The first Regional Control Centres are planned to go live in 2008. The remaining RCCs will come on line between then and 2009.”

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