Let’s start with a stat:  80% of government IT leaders experienced at least 1 critical network outage in the last 3 months.(1)

Public safety mission critical systems have to stay available 24 x 7 x 365.  Period.  A Public Safety system is not a “normal” IT network. Your technology needs to keep first responders safe and needs to be uniquely supported and managed to operate under all circumstances and events – planned or unplanned. You have to prepare to fail.

Understanding how your system operates in various failure modes is critical. How well can you identify an outage versus a maintenance check? What types of contingency plans do you have defined in your organisation and with third-party vendors and agencies? How often are you accessing wireless coverage information to ensure you don’t have any new blind spots from when the system was first installed? If and when a failure does happen, how responsive you are to minimising the downtime can make a significant difference in the outcome you experience.

Mission-critical network management takes rigour and expertise that requires a comprehensive approach with the right team, processes and tools.

You can read more about best practices you need to adopt in our new whitepaper: Critical Steps to Prevent Network Downtime.

Find out more about our range of services for mission-critical networks and more at www.motorolasolutions.com/services

John Moule is Public Safety Sales Lead – EIA

John is on LinkedIn

SOURCES: (1) 2016 Survey by the Center for Digital Government.

Follow @MotSolsEMEA on Twitter and look out for #NetworkDowntime

What a buzz at B-APCO! Let me share a taster in videos and pictures...

David Parry welcomes you to BAPCO and gives an introduction to what’s new this year:

‘Social Media in Public Safety – How Far Have We Come?’ was a presentation given by Chief Inspector Kerry Blakeman and myself. To demonstrate how useful social media is we actually live-streamed the session using Twitter’s Periscope. You can catch up with that here:

It was all about Mobilising Intelligence..
..in a control room:

On the street:

And in a vehicle:

WAVE provides push-to-talk over LTE:

The Airwave Land Rover was there, ready to extend coverage wherever needed:

You can find out more and keep up-to-date about our participation at www.motorolasolutions.com/bapco

Julian Foster is Global Co-Lead for our Social Media Centre of Excellence.

Julian is on Linkedin

https://www.linkedin.com/in/julianfoster/

Note - have you received this blog post by email? You may not see the videos embedded in this blog – if so you can watch them at these URLs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM19IW5UkUA&list=PL-qcM_OQqRggrANnvYISnDj8azdwEn3GH&index=1

and

https://www.periscope.tv/MotSolsEMEA/1OyKAoQPkkLJb?t=15

- - apologies for any inconvenience.

Follow #ThinkPublicSafety, @MotSolsEMEA, on Twitter.

ESN. Transition. Cloud computing.  

These three phrases are probably foremost in the thinking of everybody who has an interest in the current changes occurring within the UK public sector communications arena. Indeed not only with IT professionals, but they are probably exercising the thinking of many senior and operational officers too.

What is ESN exactly? How do we transition? Can we utilise more shared infrastructure? How secure is the Cloud? How can I minimise service disruption during any transition? These are just some of the many questions that are often asked and to which there are multiple answers, dependent on your point of view.

As a former Control Room manager myself, I can understand the necessity of completely understanding what a Cloud Control Room (CR) can add to my business as well as the obvious concerns; please note I used the word ‘add’ as there is an opportunity for the move away from on premise (On Prem) solutions to ‘Cloud based’ to provide additional business benefits to not only the end user and operators, but to each organisation as well.

For example, current On Prem deployment of equipment brings with it a physical limitation to certain aspects namely: capacity and flexibility. By running applications such as Command & Control systems and ICCS systems etc. for your daily business operations on virtual machines (VM), these provide the scope for instantaneous increases (and reductions) of capacity upon demand. This is especially important not only for spate conditions and for Business As Usual (BAU) operations, but especially when facing spontaneous incidents; whether they be of a disaster type situation such as fatal rail collisions, industrial incidents (such as Buncefield Oil Depot) or Public Order situations such as the riots of 2011 across the UK and of course, criminal acts of terrorism which require a multi-agency response of a significant nature for some considerable period of time.

The VM within the hosted environment will easily absorb not only the increased volume of traffic being generated but can instantly provide additional ‘seats’ for additional application users to be connected. Not only will the capacity provide the additional numbers requiring access to the systems, but it will absorb the volume of voice and data traffic being passed without affecting the speed of response to the transactions being performed. Older systems with a limited capacity do not have these benefits of scalability and flexibility.

VM applications also provide users with the opportunity to make savings on Disaster Recovery (DR) sites too. By connecting to the VM using a suitable secure IP connection, whether that is a Direct Network Service Provider (DNSP) link or an alternative with the suitable encryption, users effectively have an on-demand DR option from wherever they choose. In some cases, this removes the requirement to provision a separate CR which is just on a ‘cold stand by’ with the associated costs of provisioning and maintaining one being greatly reduced.

The security of the Cloud has oft been cited as a reason NOT to move into that environment, but the security of hosted locations are often more secure than On Prem solutions, either the physical security of the building or the IT firewalls and access points within existing systems. Hosted environments are within very secure buildings with levels of encryption and routers and firewalls to pass through being often out of the reach financially should an organisation wish to implement such screening locally. Couple this with the DNSP encryption which will be applied, then organisations will be moving to a more secure infrastructure than those currently employed.

Finally, where organisations are either seeking or considering areas of greater collaboration with partners, whether within their own vertical of Police, Fire and Ambulance or with multi-agency collaborations, the use of Cloud CR provides an easier method of utilising shared hosted environments. Not only will this provide a reduction in costs through economy of scale, but also providing an easier road map for application collaborations and improved data sharing going forward.

Mark Swift is a Product Manager for Motorola Solutions

Mark is on LinkedIn

Follow #ThinkPublicSafety, @MotSolsEMEA, on Twitter.

New - Public Safety Survey 2017 – Europe, Middle-East and Africa Edition

The Motorola Public Safety Survey, has become an invaluable reference on the trends and needs for communications technology for police, fire, rescue, emergency medical services and other public safety and government agencies.

In our 2015 Survey Europe and Africa special edition, we found that Public Safety communications were being transformed. The survey revealed how four key factors influence agencies of all sizes, and how change was driven by high speed data and a need for communications across multiple networks and devices including radios, smartphones and tablets. We found that being able to access data in real-time is vital. An overwhelming 77% of participants said having instant, reliable information at their fingertips is ‘critical’ or ‘very important’ while working in the field.

What has changed since the last survey?

Are cloud solutions now suitable for Public Safety agencies? Can body-worn cameras help keep officers safe and address questions around police conduct? Can social media help agencies communicate important information to the public more quickly? Or can agencies use social media to gain more information during an emergency?

We are repeating the survey in 2017 for all of Europe, Middle-East and Africa. We want your input as we investigate the top trends in Public Safety communications technology in 2017. Make your voice heard on a variety of topics including the use of video, smart devices, cloud, and social media in Public Safety, as well as the latest status and expectations of Public Safety LTE and the impact it will have on Public Safety technology.

What will we learn this year? Take the survey now and, in return for your participation, we will share the final report with you as soon as it is ready.

We look forward to hearing what you have to say. The survey is quick, easy, and should only take you a few minutes to complete.

You can find more detail about the survey at www.motorolasolutions.com/EMEAsurvey..

.. and you can also download the 2015 survey report – Transforming Public Safety Communications

David Parry is Director, EMEA Marketing

David is on LinkedIn

Follow @MotSolsEMEA on Twitter and look out for #EMEAPublicSafetySurvey

Lots of interest, lots of customers, lots of conversations at this week’s Critical Communications Europe event in Copenhagen. If you weren’t able to make it or didn’t get to see it all, here are some short must-see videos from the show floor. 

Tunde Williams welcomes us to the show. With over 1000 Public Safety and Commercial visitors expected how are we meeting their challenges? How are we future-proofing TETRA? Why is our new DIMETRA Express solution so important for expanding the use of TETRA? What is Mobile Intelligence? These are just a few of the items that Tunde covers:

Paul Wilson introduces the new DIMETRA Express - a fully integrated 'all-in-one-box' TETRA system that supports TETRA voice services, short data, and VOIP telephony. Paul explains how simple the system is to install - taking less than 15 minutes! Web based apps and management means that customers can use their own hardware and devices to install, operate and maintain the system themselves:

Lots of interest, lots of customers, lots of conversations - David Parry invites you to stay tuned and watch some highlights from the show:

We’ll add more videos as we get them and you can always catch up with our YouTube video playlist or on our Critical Communications Europe microsite www.motorolasolutions.com/cceurope

Paul Jeffs - Editor - Think Public Safety.

Paul Jeffs is Public Safety Editorial Lead for Europe and Africa at Motorola Solutions.

Paul is on LinkedIn

Follow #ThinkPublicSafety, #CCEUROPE and @MotSolsEMEA  on Twitter.