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Securing communications

It could be said that the timing of BAPCO 2010 could not have been worse in terms of the travel restrictions placed on the UK as a result of the Icelandic volcanic eruption. However, BAPCO 2010 saw leading decision makers and influencers attend from all aspects of public safety communications including members of local and central government, the emergency services, fire authorities, MOD, British Army, Department of Health and the Police, to meet with suppliers and source new solutions.

Unsurprisingly, the majority of visitors were from the South East of England and London, but many delegates and exhibition visitors attended from the North of England and Scotland, with some dedicated international delegates making the journey from Europe to BAPCO by car!

Exhibition showcase
The exhibition saw over 100 leading specialists showcase current and future communications and information management systems and engage in a flurry of business, order-writing and networking with visitors and delegates. Once again, the Opening Dinner at The Brewery on Tuesday 20 April provided delegates and suppliers with an excellent opportunity to make contact prior to the first day of the exhibition. Guest speaker Phil Packer’s inspirational speech on his physical achievements in spite of his spinal cord injury met with a standing ovation and guest comedian Milton Jones kept the audience laughing with his many one-liners.

Nicola Savage from innovative communication solutions company Excelerate commented: “BAPCO is about quality and building relationships. It’s always a great show for us. We matched last year’s achievements in spite of the travel issues (volcanic ash!), and furthered key client relationships that really matter for our business.”

Other exhibitors also confirmed their success at the event, Karen Lillywhite from Red Box Recorders proclaimed the event as their “most successful BAPCO ever!” and David White from Sungard gave his thanks to the organising team: “Thank you again for another brilliantly executed and administered BAPCO.”

CyberTech International once again exhibited its latest voice recording offerings to the emergency service operators and other key industry organisations at BAPCO.

CyberTech International is a recognised provider of innovative and mission critical multi-media recording and assessment solutions for the government, industry, transport and utilities markets around the world. The offering of CyberTech encompasses recording solutions for TETRA networks, dispatch and emergency call taking centres. In addition, fixed and wireless Ambient Recording solutions have been developed around the specific needs of emergency services teams responding to major incidents.

CyberTech is constantly developing technology partnerships with key TETRA, command & control room and PBX suppliers, to provide fully integrated and certified solutions. The comprehensive offering of CyberTech is completed by effective products for the evaluation of call handling by agents as well as for the gathering and analysis of customer feedback and speech analytics.

Otto van Linden, the managing director of the Government, Industry, Transport & Utilities markets Business Unit of CyberTech, pointed out: “Our solutions are constantly developed as a real answer to the ever changing requirements of the emergency services. In the UK alone CyberTech has thousands of recording channels already implemented, with more than 35 per cent of the UK’s Police Forces and over 80 per cent of all Ambulance Service Trusts using the systems around the clock”.

PageOne Communications showcased its exclusive MTPAS (Mobile Telecommunication Privileged Access Scheme) enabled 2-way pagers for Category 1 and 2 responders.

MTPAS is a cabinet-office run scheme, which ensures that in the event of a major incident, Category 1 and 2 responders are given privileged access to the mobile phone networks. As the 2-way pager can utilise the GSM network to send back vital information on the status and location of responders, the Cabinet Office chose for the first time to include 2-way paging within the scheme, recognising that the 2-way pager plays a vital part in the communications strategies of blue-light organisations.  

As an MTPAS Service Provider under the scheme, PageOne will install a privileged access SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card in the 2-way pager device for any Category 1 or 2 organisation. These privileged access SIMs will be automatically included in PageOne 2-way pagers for all users within the responder community, but are not available to members of the public.

As PageOne’s 2-way pagers use the company’s independent wide area paging network they provide reliable 2-way communication with the added benefits of auto acknowledgement, location of pager and response messages returned over either GPRS or GSM. The pagers also include a GPS chip that supplies the control centre with the last known location of the pager together with a reply message, supplying superior intelligence regarding the location of staff and enabling the more efficient deployment of staff throughout a major incident.

The addition of a new SOS option within the 2-way pager, means that the pager user can now also trigger a silent or audible alert. Ideal for lone workers in remote locations, when an emergency alert is triggered, the geographical coordinates are also transmitted and can be displayed on a map in the operations control centre. The 2-way pager also comes with a remote tracking function that controlled remotely, generates location information, at regular intervals.

PageOne messaging consultants were available to discuss this new development and gave a ‘2-way paging and MTPAS’ seminar where attendees could learn more about the capabilities of the 2-way pager and its deployment in real life applications.

Visitors to the PageOne stand were also able to have a demonstration of PageOne’s flare suite of business continuity products and register free for pulse, PageOne’s priority paging channel, which is available to PageOne’s paging customers who operate blue-light emergency applications.

“Our commitment to putting our customers at the heart of everything we do drives our product innovation and service developments,” commented Clair Cawley, marketing director, PageOne Communications. “BAPCO presented us with a great platform to showcase the new developments of our public sector products, which can greatly assist public safety communications officers in their day to day roles.

TETRAtab were present at the stand of CFocus with their new range of TETRA enabled devices including real pocket PC, ultra compact sized in-vehicle PC, netbooks, and laptops.

For more flexibility and ready to use TETRAtab Ltd also introduced the TETRAtab USB modem and the first touch screen desktop PC with integrated TETRA modem for rapid deployment of mobile control rooms. Furthermore, TETRAtab Ltd now offers integration services to TETRA enable standard equipment already in use including recycling services for the TETRA modem when those devices are being replaced by newer versions.

Conference debate

The conference provided stimulating debate amongst delegates and speakers and saw the last minute addition of Colonel Bob Stewart, DSO, as a keynote speaker, who presented on ‘Crisis Management and the media’ and looked at how commanding emergency services professionals can deal with the media in emergency situations. Presentations from this year’s conference programme are available to download from www.bapco.co.uk.

Event director Lucy McPhail commented: “This is a unique event in that it brings together professionals from across all the emergency services and related agencies to see and test new technologies, and there is also a huge amount of business done between suppliers on the exhibition floor.” The event also delivered an increase in the number of technology buyers and specifiers from across the civil contingency sector.

For more information

BAPCO 2011 Conference and Exhibition will take place 12-14 April at the Business Design Centre, Islington, London.

 

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