Emergency Services Network

The Emergency Services Network is an all-new LTE communications system for the UK’s three emergency services (police, fire and rescue, and ambulance) and other public safety organisations.

It integrates 4G voice and data services, so that its users can run powerful applications, access and share information on the move, and ultimately save lives.

It’s also a hugely challenging critical infrastructure project. Communications for the emergency services need to remain audible, resilient and secure in all environments and conditions. They need to be able to cope with dramatic surges in demand during major incidents and need to offer the same quality of service across large areas, including rural landscapes, confined spaces and underground environments.

What is our approach?

Simoco Wireless Solutions has a strong track record in creating reliable and resilient communications networks for police, fire, ambulance and rescue services – and these solutions can integrate seamlessly with the ESN as it is rolled out across the UK.

We also have experience of working in many environments where communications infrastructures needs to integrate with the emergency services, such as road and rail tunnels, and airports. We meet the challenges of complex environments, adverse weather conditions and surging network demand head-on, ensuring that anything from underground tunnel networks to major public safety incidents do not interfere with the communications.

What are our capabilities?

At the core of the ESN is an integrated, unified approach to communications, with all voice and data carried on the same highly resilient network. However, while LTE has huge potential as a future communications standard, the immediate roll-out of a 4G emergency service network poses a number of challenges. While LTE infrastructure has been developed in most major urban areas in the UK, coverage is less reliable in rural areas. There are also significant challenges in adapting LTE for use in confined space environments for example. A carefully phased migration path towards LTE is therefore essential if the ESN is to succeed.

With expertise across a range of radio technologies, including the TETRA airwave standard on which large amounts of emergency service communications currently operate, Simoco Wireless Solutions is ideally positioned to manage challenging areas associated with the move towards LTE, such as the provision of ground to air comms.

Our expertise in technical aspects of radio frequency (RF) propagation and confined space engineering are also critical to delivering the consistent LTE network coverage required to make the ESN capable of supporting emergency service communications across a range of challenging environments.

Simoco’s rich heritage as a leading provider of mission critical communications can help the UK’s emergency services benefit from improved information-sharing, and more opportunities for data rich applications, while maintaining a reliable service across a wide range of areas and environments.

Features/Benefits

  • Reliable mission critical communications for the UK’s emergency services in challenging environments and adverse weather conditions.
  • Integration with other technologies in areas where LTE may not work in order to support the initial stages of the Emergency Service Network.
  • Improved data insight for public safety teams – for example telematics capabilities that allow operators to monitor the status of mobile units such as police vehicles and ambulances.
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