Excelerate's Satellite Solutions Keep Avon Calling

18/04/2008

When new and improved technologies enter any industry, it is often because there is a specific requirement for a solution which doesn’t already exist.

The Emergency Services sector is no exception to this, and industry-leader Excelerate Technology is working with organisations at the sharp end to help shape the role that communications play within the services.

It was Excelerate, a company that is fast becoming the authority in Transportable Satellite Broadband VPN (TSBV) solutions for the Fire, Police and Ambulance services that took the ideas, needs and requests of Avon Fire & Rescue Service on board and came back with a number of solutions more than three years ago.

The company has since taken the technology forward, now supplying all three of the 'blue light' emergency services – and Avon Fire and Rescue still continues to take the initiative by driving new applications for that latest technology.

Avon's Deputy Chief Fire Officer Jerry O’Brien explained: "I had been speaking to Excelerate about how we could improve our infrastructure and operational resilience within Avon Fire & Rescue, with the emphasis on better and more secure communications when attending an incident.

"The result was e2Work, a Virtual Private Network (VPN) solution allowing us a direct, fast and totally secure link back to headquarters at first via the GPRS and 3G mobile phone networks but then as our applications became more advanced and demanding, later via mobile satellite broadband."

The press of just one key situated on the user interface on Avon's on-board computers deploys a motorised satellite dish, which in turn searches and locks onto the appropriate satellite and establishes a two way, secure broadband satellite connection – automatically and within just a few minutes.

Excelerate has since improved and added to its portfolio of products and services and, along with Avon Fire and Rescue, was directly involved in 'Disaster City', a mock disaster scenario held at last year's Fire 2005 exhibition where Excelerate’s TSBV and the newly launched RapidNet GSM played an instrumental role in demonstrating the procedures and technology used at such a situation.

Avon has installed TSBV on three of its Incident Command Units (ICUs). Excelerate's own VPN product, specifically developed at the time for Avon Fire due to the absence of any other 'off-the-shelf' device, the e2work interface, is a rack-mounted VPN concentrator that, coupled with Excelerate’s technical skills, provides the user with fast, secure and cost-effective access to corporate servers from any location on the planet as if you were sitting at your own workstation.

Excelerate Technology is the only provider of transportable and fixed satellite solutions in the world to have developed its own VPN hardware and carries the largest stock in Europe.

David Savage, Chairman and CEO for Excelerate said: "Our TSBV solutions have been driven by the needs of customers like Avon Fire & Rescue Service and it is certainly becoming a necessity rather than a luxury for those needing secure access to incidentcritical files from head office or the desire to securely transmit data, voice and video telephony and even live video-streaming.

"It is not always a case of approaching the end user with a new or improved solution, it is often a case that they have suggested a particular requirement and we have made that happen for them, the best example I can think of, of a business listening to its customers."

RapidNet GSM is a new concept that was showcased during ‘Disaster City’ and is set to transform the way in which the emergency services communicate within the police cordon of a major incident or disaster.

A self-contained private GSM network – RapidNet GSM is ideal for use at the scene of an incident as it allows Emergency Services workers and officers access to congestionfree mobile communication within the perimeters of the police cordon.

The network can allow any user within the coverage area to use their existing mobile phones or more commonly in our environment to be configured for a closed user group, effectively creating a private mobile phone network. The controlling software has a user database which contains the details of each authorised mobile device. Any standard GSM mobile phone can be set as an authorised device.

Deputy Chief Fire Officer Jerry O'Brien added: "RapidNet GSM certainly has the potential to provide added value and resilience as was shown at 'Disaster City', knowing that you may be the other side of a police cordon, possibly a mile away from command control but still rely on your mobile phone is something that we have not had the benefit of until now."

The latest edition to Excelerate’s growing portfolio is Metal Mickey eXtra which has been developed with a camera-technology partner. The product is designed to help aid risk assessment in cases where further information may be required prior to entering a building that is on fire or for gaining additional information in an urban search and rescue environment.

Martin Saunders, Sales Director at Excelerate said: "The camera has the ability to assess and pinpoint exactly where a fire may be and the temperature of the heat source. This can be managed both at the scene and remotely through our TSBV solution.

"With vital decisions made at ground level and safety always of paramount importance – this technology puts the Fire Service in a position to assess exactly what lies behind a solid brick wall, where a body may be in an urban search and rescue mission and what the temperature of a fire or body may be.

"This information can be viewed by an officer from any web-point in the world via a 128 bit encryption and with no extra software supplied by the viewer."

Excelerate can be contacted for a free demonstration, at your premises in its Mobile Demonstration Unit on 0845 65 85 747 or info@excelerate.info