Command, Control & Communications

Fire Link Project

Why do the fire service need a new radio system?
Not all fire brigades in the country have the same radio system which makes direct communications very difficult. In addition, the majority of the radio systems throughout the country are more than 20 years old, equipment spares are becoming obsolete and the speech quality is very poor.

What about the police and ambulance services?
In 1998 the Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO) was established to buy a national radio system for the police. In February 2000, PITO signed a framework arrangement with British Telecommunications (now O2) to provide a radio service across police forces in England, Wales and Scotland by 2004/2005. For further information and to access the Public, Private Partnerships: Airwave report detailing this framework agreement visit the National Audit Office website where you can download a copy of the report.

In June 2001, the Department of Health announced that there would be a new national radio network for ambulance services and other NHS radio users. Inter-service communications with police and fire are a key requirement of their new system.

What difference will the new radio system make to the fire service?
A new radio system will significantly improve communication methods. Advances in technology and communications over the last 20 years, but more specifically over the last 10 years have been dramatic. Mobile phones, e-mail, satellite communications, aerial photography and automatic vehicle location systems to mention but a few have made the world a smaller place. The fire service, using this new technology, will be able to relay real time information to incident commanders whatever their location.

The safety of the fire crews on the ground will be improved due to the enhanced infrastructure of the radio system, which will allow multiple communications links to be set up and also enable communications within and around tall buildings. The current radio systems have severe limitations as they only allow one person to give commands and due to the lack of signal boosters, crews are unable to hear radio signals when they are in tall buildings.



Top of Page