Scottish Fire Services sign up to Airwave
Scottish Ministers and the National Assembly for Wales have signed up their respective Fire and Rescue Services to the Airwave service. The announcement follows the recent agreement that all Fire and Rescue services in England would be taking up the voice and data communications system under the Firelink contract.
Scottish Ministers and the National Assembly for Wales have signed up their respective Fire and Rescue Services to the Airwave service. The announcement follows the recent agreement that all Fire and Rescue services in England would be taking up the voice and data communications system under the Firelink contract.
This means they will soon have a national network that they can use to communicate within their own organisations, with the other fire and rescue services and with any other public safety agency using the Airwave service.
The clear need for seamless communications between emergency services has been underlined following the high profile events of 2005 such as the London bombings and the increased number of natural disasters across the world. The recent London Assembly report into 7/7 considered Airwave to be “an essential element of effective communications within and between the emergency services.
Pete Richardson, O2 Airwaves Chief Executive, adds: We are, of course, delighted with this announcement and we now look forward to working closely with the Scottish and Welsh Fire and Rescue Services. As a result of the emergency services choosing the Airwave service, we can now provide the kind of interoperability thats going to help to make this nation a safer place in which to live and work. Its benefits are already being realised by our users, especially during major operations, including the police operation G8 in Gleneagles last summer.
