Airwave delivers Middle East mission-critical comms

Airwave has opened an office in Dubai that will serve as hub for providing mission-critical communications services to the Middle East.

The official opening was attended by representatives from the British Embassy and Dubai Silicon Oasis – a 100 per cent government-owned free zone established to facilitate and promote modern technology-based industries.

“The opening of the Dubai office is in response to increasing demand for our expertise and knowledge in building, maintaining and operating Airwave’s Emergency Services Network (ESN) in Great Britain,” explained Mike McKone, Airwave’s Middle East director. “The office will serve as a hub to advise Middle Eastern customers on mission-critical communications.”

Airwave’s chief executive officer Richard Bobbett added: “The opening of our office demonstrates our genuine commitment to doing business here. Our offering in the Middle East will mirror our approach in Great Britain and we look forward to working with our customers to deliver capabilities that will enable them to take advantage of new voice and data technologies both today and well into the future.”

Dubai is the fourth country in which Airwave has established a presence, after Australia, Germany and the UK.

The contracts for the UK’s existing emergency services systems provided by Airwave Solutions will begin to expire in September 2016. Airwave is among those shortlisted by the Home Office for the network infrastructure and network management elements of the Government’s new ESN, which will replace Airwave’s narrowband Tetra network currently used by the UK’s police, fire and ambulance services.

Contracts will be awarded in 2015 and the new ESN is expected to go live from 2016/17.