Jubilee provides massive Airwave test

An unprecedented number of public safety organisations used the Airwave Service during the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations setting a new record for the number of users communicating on the same platform in one location.

The four days of the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations saw 167 organisations connected to the network and of these, 74 represented individual bodies from the emergency services (police, fire and ambulance). These included services from Hampshire, Wales and the Home Counties.

The remaining agencies using the Airwave Network were user groups from the Airwave Direct community (including the local authorities, coastal agencies and port authorities) who were also connected. According to John Lewis, chief operating officer, Airwave: “The Thames River Pageant saw the greatest Network usage for the weekend which recorded over a million push-to-talk (PTT) interactions on the Network between 6 am and 5:30 pm. We also recorded over 11,100 connections to the Network in London at 2pm, which is a 52 per cent increase on the previous month.”

A total of 25,477 radio terminals were connected to the Airwave Network during the full 24 hour period on 3 June. This compares with 6,000 at last years’ Royal wedding

For more information
tinyurl.com/7n2gfdz