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How Airwave is keeping the emergency services talking
Every six minutes across Great Britain, a member of the emergency services uses Airwave’s emergency button to summon urgent assistance. The company’s indepth understanding of the emergency services arena is such that more than 300 public service organisations (300,000 users) rely on its mission critical communications service
With its headquarters in Slough and annual sales of £421 million, Airwave is ranked at number four in the annual Southern Tech 100. The Business Magazine talked to CEO Richard Bobbett (pictured below) to find out more.
we’re not distracted by any other type of customer, we know how they live and work and we know what is important to them.“
Some £1.4 billion has been invested to create an unrivalled infrastructure. Airwave covers over 99% of Great Britain’s landmass, providing communications in the remotest of areas where normal fixed lines, GRPS, 3G or 4G, simply won’t reach, and it has exceptionally high-resilience capabilities.
Not only do all the core blue light services – police, fire and ambulance – rely on Airwave for their primary form of communications, but the system also serves the wider first responder community. These include the Highways Agency, utility companies and local authorities, together with charities such as the RSPCA, RNLI and mountain rescue groups.
Bobbett’s passion for the business is evident. He spent time with Strathclyde Fire Brigade to understand how firefighters communicate under pressure in burning buildings; worked with West Midlands paramedics to see how Airwave can help cut waiting times for ambulance crews taking patients to hospital; and regularly spends time out with the police.
The Airwave story began in the mid-1990s when the Home Office recognised it needed to improve the way police forces communicated with each other.
A BT-led consortium won the original Airwave contract, moving it into the O2 family before new owner Telefonica sold the business into the private sector in 2007, where it has remained ever since.
Bobbett believes being in private ownership works to its advantage: “We can be more agile and respond to market trends in a way that publicly-owned companies can’t,“ he said.
“As a commercial company we are used to hitting deadlines and managing processes. Airwave has effectively been a large government PFI contract but one that is quite unique in being delivered on time, on budget, does what it is meant to do, and charges the price agreed on the original contract.
“We are absolutely focused on the emergency services and what they do on a daily basis,
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – APRIL 2014
The service is specifically designed to ensure all three emergency services can communicate with each other when they need to, something that wasn’t previously possible.
Just how seamlessly that happens was in evidence during the recent flood relief effort. In one example, the fire brigade in Dorset called on the RNLI to operate its rescue craft from a fire station, and thanks to Airwave the crew was able to slot straight in, effectively being treated as part of fire brigade resources.
At the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Airwave was chosen by the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) as its official private mobile radio (PMR) service provider to keep the operation safe and secure; and during the 2011 London riots, the Airwave network played a key role in helping the emergency services maintain public order.
The company’s engineering team is continually developing new applications,
including sophisticated mobile application suites for electronic notebooks, allowing police officers access to pre-loaded forms and record information on the move.
It
means statistics can be easily downloaded and shared, cutting costs, improving visibility of information and keeping officers on the street.
The business is also keen to attract a new generation of engineers and business leaders, however, when the company advertised a recent apprenticeship scheme, far fewer applicants responded from the Thames Valley compared to other regions.
Bobbett knows in the longer term this may impact on the business, and says: “The pressure is on for us to have a presence where our customers are. There are areas of the country where it will be easier to recruit than the Thames Valley, where we know the cost of living is higher.“
Between 2016 and 2020 Airwave’s existing contracts come up for re-tender and Bobbett recognises there will be new competitors in the marketplace seeking to exploit 4G, the only technology that comes close to the power of Airwave’s current TETRA system.
“TETRA was the right technology at the time, but in future I think 4G will provide a better service,“ he said. “Our engineering team is already delivering some products to customers using 4G and we are beginning to see the benefits.“
Among these was a new 4GMax service launched in February, offering increased capacity for applications such as live video streaming.
Bobbett knows that to stay successful and profitable, Airwave needs to continue reinventing itself and its services, both in Great Britain and overseas markets, where it already has a strong foothold.
With its role at the heart of the nation’s mission critical communications service, it’s clear Airwave is determined to stay one step ahead of that thin blue line.
Details: Richard Bobbett 0800-011-3399
www.airwavesolutions.co.uk
www.businessmag.co.uk
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