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Another ‘Blue Light’ customer for PSBA - 23rd March 2010

The modernisation of the fire and rescue service has created a much greater dependency on ICT systems to support operational activities. In the Mid & West Wales Fire & Rescue Service for example, fire station personnel now need access to software systems to help them maintain their specialist competencies, identify high risk premises in their area and also to support their community fire safety prevention programmes.

Mid & West is one of three fire services in Wales and covers a large geographical area of approximately 3,400 square miles encompassing the six unitary authorities of Swansea, Neath & Port Talbot, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire and Powys. It operates 55 fire stations, 6 local Command offices and a headquarters facility at Carmarthen. Delivering ICT services to all these locations has historically been both costly and complex for the Service to address.

Consequently, since late last year the Service has been engaging with the Assembly’s Public Sector Broadband (PSBA) team in order to secure an improved wide area network but one that could be delivered without significant increase to existing revenue budgets. As Nigel Williams, Head of ICT for the Service explained,

“Reconciling the demands for increased network bandwidth delivered in a secure fashion commensurate with fire service needs against the current financial limitations we face in the public sector has been a daunting task for me. However, with some innovative network design by the Logicalis engineers and the flexible commercial models made possible by the PSBA team I am satisfied we can now achieve this.”

The Mid & West Wales Fire & Rescue Service has recently formally committed to procure new wide area network services from PSBA that will be comprised of a mixture of 100Mb, 10Mb and SDSL connections. The network will support existing IP voice facilities in addition to delivering a new method of Internet access. The rollout is scheduled to commence in July and be completed by the end of October 2010.