Excelerate supplies support to Thames Valley Police

01/10/2006

Thames Valley Police is the largest non-metropolitan police force in the country. Covering the 2,200 square miles of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, it patrols 196 miles of motorway - the largest stretch of motorway in Britain - and serves a population of 2.1 million, not to mention the six million visitors who come every year in search of history, royalty and a day at the races.

So to a Police Force of this size, communication is vital, which is why it 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.

12 months on and Thames Valley Police has gone one stage further by recruiting the services of Excelerate Technology, the leading supplier of TSBV to the UK’s Emergency Services, to maintain the system and supply airtime through the company’s very own Virtual Network Operator (VNO) managed solutions.

Darren Field, Mobile Technology Manager for Thames Valley Police 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 joined its illustrious colleagues by becoming the first Police Force to commission Excelerate’s services.

David Savage, Chairman and CEO of Excelerate puts it down to research and development. Savage explained: “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.”
Darren Field added: “We are now looking to utilise the technology that we have to improve and deliver new vital services to our Force. Covering such a large area means that we place a lot of emphasis on our communications structure and we don’t want to compromise that in any way. I am looking forward to working with Excelerate and taking its advice on current and future projects.”