Civil Contingency

With experience of working with all three UK blue light services, Excelerate Technology is technology supplier for the new national multi million pound framework agreement for the national Hazardous Area Response Team (HART) initiative. This will result in the most comprehensively equipped Mobile Incident Response, Command, Communications and Management vehicles ever commissioned and provide the technologies, tools, intelligence and resilience to manage major incidents more effectively.

The first vehicles will be supplied to West Midlands, West Yorkshire and Merseyside NHS Ambulance Trusts. Each set will comprise three vehicles, one main incident response unit with sophisticated command and communications equipment plus two CBRN response vehicles carrying all the necessary specialist support equipment.

Russ Mansford – Strategic Ambulance Advisor to the Department of Health, Emergency Preparedness Division.

“The safety of personnel operating in all the emergency services is an issue of paramount importance that is addressed by the NHS HART Framework Agreement. From the outset I felt we should endeavor to provide the best available equipment, the highest standards of training and the most robust protocols and procedures to support crews on the ground. Excelerate has developed a unique, integrated package of best of breed technologies that will significantly improve the safety of people being asked to risk their lives in potentially dangerous environments.”

Richard Mckeand, General Manager of the Civil Contingencies Unit Great Western Ambulance Service NHS Trust.

“This new generation of Mobile Incident Vehicles will enable the emergency services to meet their responsibilities under the Civil Contingencies Act, improve multi agency co-operation and enable major incidents to be resolved more effectively.”

Solutions Overview

Satellite delivered IP Connectivity at broadband speeds - Serious data, video and voice applications require solutions and services that can deliver the right amounts of bandwidth, for both uploads and downloads, regardless of location. Satellite is the only viable solution to deliver this capability, particularly when you consider that many of our customers often have no advance warning of where and when it will be rapidly brought into service.

Excelerate Technology has a range of satellite solutions to accommodate any application on vehicles that are stationary when managing major incidents, or on vehicles that are moving and need to access key applications at speed. We also provide solutions for static sites such as buildings as well as a range of maritime applications. In most cases the equipment is installed permanently, but portable and transportable versions are also available.

Our business model requires that we operate and manage the networks that we make available to our customers in real time. This allows us to deliver the most flexible range of bandwidth options and tariffs with the highest levels of consistency and quality.

Wireless Expandability – With satellite forming the backhaul to the wider world, our wireless solutions extend the range of operations and we provide a number of transmission technologies that take into account specific operational needs and environmental conditions. Wireless-enabled vehicles can interconnect and our patented, rapidly deployable wireless nodes allow rapid and easy extension of operational perimeters allowing wireless devices such as tablet PC’s, PDA’s, VOIP phones and cameras to operate within the designated zone or cordon.

Voice Communications – Utilising our satellite, wireless and Private GSM Service we provide a comprehensive suite of different voice capabilities ensuring maximum availability and resilience even when normal terrestrial services are not available or have been compromised. Excelerate’s Communications Management Solution (ECMS) provides a fully integrated and functional satellite and GSM PBX to deliver seamless connectivity as if it was part of a customer’s core telecoms network. ECMS can patch and record every voice device being pushed through it and users of VOIP handsets, GSM, VHF, UHF and Airwave can be connected to each other.

We also provide and manage a fully functional, cost effective private GSM network anywhere it is required whether it be vehicle, land or sea-based. Excelerate Technology is the first company in Europe to deliver a private GSM network that travels with the customer. Our RapidNet Private GSM network can be complimented with our encrypted GSM handsets to ensure calls are secure although these handsets will work on other CSD enabled networks too anywhere in the world.

Of course, not all our customers require this level of sophistication and simpler solutions are also part of our comprehensive portfolio.

Video Applications – Our ability to deliver consistent, high quality bandwidth anywhere via satellite and wireless has created a high demand for integrated vehicle, land, sea and body worn CCTV solutions. They enhance security and operational capability by providing our customers with the means to view high quality video using internet and 3G connections anywhere in the world. We provide body worn solutions that utilise a variety of transmission standards including COFDM, Wireless, GSM and 3G to suit the purpose and the levels of resilience required. Our camera solutions offer normal and thermal capability with recording both locally and remotely, and comply with all legislation for using recorded material for evidential purposes.

Network Configuration, Security and Data Storage – Excelerate Technology provides both the expertise and the hardware to ensure that end-to-end connectivity is secure and private with all data stored safely and archived for rapid and easy retrieval by authorised personnel. Our own satellite and GSM specific VPN technology ensures our customers applications run fast and smooth with a stable connection. Our engineers are qualified in the field of VPN network security and configuration and work with our customers to ensure integration is painless and operation and security is never compromised.

Information Displays? – Our turnkey end-to-end integration capabilities extend to ensuring that our customers can view the information that is being relayed in the way that suits their operational requirements. We configure complex multi-screen applications to ensure the greatest range of possibilities in the most user friendly way. Excelerate provides a complete range of solutions from single displays and video walls in operational areas, to large touchscreen or smartboard enabled plasma and LCD panels through to external high brightness, anti-glare displays for large scale external briefings and public information applications. We are committed to meeting the needs of customers and providing them with the most appropriate technology to meet specific business requirements.

Strategic Emergency Planning Software (STEPS) – Our product portfolio continues to expand to meet the increasing requirements of organisations across many different market sectors for satellite bandwidth. There are no limitations to the benefits that can be achieved by investing in satellite solutions. The more things our customers can do over the satellite IP connection the more compelling the requirement and the decision to use satellite. The greater the number of applications the more cost effective the continuous investment in bandwidth actually becomes.

An obvious application is the ability to provide and integrate informative and user friendly visual planning tools with full GIS and Mapping that can be interfaced with other headquarters based applications. From the moment that the satellite connection is made, the information provided is right up to date and all operational decisions and changes can be conveyed to other users of the software anywhere in the world near instantly. STEPS provides location-based intelligence about an area, buildings, infrastructure, assets and threats overlaid with operational collateral that allows faster and more informed management of incidents and the automatic sharing of information in real time with colleagues or other participating agencies anywhere to improve communication and incident appraisal.