Thames Valley maintains communications vehicles

Thames Valley, the largest non-metropolitan police force in the country, has recruited the services of Excelerate Technology to maintain the technology within its communications support vehicles.

The force embarked upon a project 12 months ago to install Transportable Broadband Satellite VPN (TSBV) technology within one of its communications support vehicles.

This has given the force WAN flexibility and enabled it to upgrade its Forward Command Unit’s (FCU) network connection from GPRS to a direct and secure link to the force infrastructure. It can also provide standalone LAN connectivity for a planned or spontaneous command centre (Silver) which could be located in a building or temporary accommodation.

Excelerate Technology is the leading supplier of TSBV to the UK’s Emergency Services and it will maintain Thames Valley’s system and supply airtime through its Virtual Network Operator (VNO) managed solutions.

Darren Field, Mobile Technology Manager for Thames Valley, said: “We have been very impressed with Excelerate and have decided to take its services because of the company’s expertise, experience and forward thinking approach.”

Cardiff-based Excelerate’s TSBV solutions have been used by the UK’s Fire and Ambulance services for the past four years, and Thames Valley Police has become the first police force to commission its services.

David Savage, Chairman and CEO of Excelerate, said: “We are constantly improving our products and services and often take the lead from our clients. If they request a solution that doesn’t exist, we don’t say no, we just ask for a bit of time. This has helped lead us to where we are now and our transportable and secure satellite solutions now provide facilities such as voice, fax and video technology, CCTV security applications and even GSM mobile phone services and thermal imaging video transmission.”