Press release

West Midlands Fire Fights for Fire Prevention with High Speed Network from Telewest Business

• Supports modernisation in the West Midlands Fire Service

14th, September, 2005. West Midlands Fire has turned to Telewest Business to introduce a high-speed communications network to connect fire stations across the West Midlands region. The move has ensured that staff have timely access to West Midlands Fire’s networked applications that are critical to its daily operations and supports the Governments modernisation agenda for the Fire Service.

Eight of the fire service’s main sites have been connected with Telewest Business’ Evolved Ethernet product, with a further 34 sites connected with point-to-point circuits, ensuring critical data is quickly and easily accessible in real-time across the network.

West Midlands Fire Service serves a population of 2.5 million people across seven Metropolitan districts and its 2,000 fire fighters respond to 65,000 incidents in an average year. The fire service relies on sophisticated networked resource management applications to ensure that resources across the region can be monitored closely and the fire service is always equipped to answer calls in the shortest time possible. These rely on having high network availability and resiliency, assured by the Telewest Business network.

“The introduction of a high speed communications network enables the ICT Systems that are essential in the modernisation programme of the West Midlands Fire Service,” said Sean Kelly, IT Manager at West Midlands Fire. “We have become increasingly reliant on networked computer systems to manage data critical to our operations. Our strategy to prevent fires before they occur also needs to be supported by improved communications between fire officers across the West Midlands Fire Authority Area. The additional bandwidth has helped us introduce the systems we need to ensure we continue to meet our targets for serving the community.”

As part of West Midlands Fire’s modernisation programme, new targets for fire prevention activities in the Brigade area have also been introduced. The fire service’s ‘Risk Based Inspection Programme’, has been computerised and networked to support these targets. Previously safety inspections on local businesses and homes were conducted once or twice a year, but now inspections can be managed according to risk rather than on a time basis.

Fire Officers are also required to provide an increased level of statistical information on operational activity, which is fed into the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) which is used to monitor the Authority’s progress against both local and national performance targets. To ensure this information is up-to-date and accurate, the fire service’s operational computer systems need to be updated in real-time by fire officers located in different sites across the Brigade area.

“Emergency services in the UK are going through a significant period of modernisation,” said Christopher Small, Director for Public Sector, Telewest Business. “Better communications must be at the heart of any modernisation programme. This will help organisations such as West Midlands Fire to act to eliminate the need to just react to incidents. Our Evolved Ethernet services have been designed to reduce the cost for organisations that need a high speed reliable communications network to support their public service targets.”

In addition, the increased bandwidth, enabled through the deployment of Telewest Business’ Evolved Ethernet services, will support the rollout of email to every fire fighter in the brigade to improve communications within the fire service. Previously only shared email accounts were accessible within individual fire stations. Telewest Business’ Evolved Ethernet services, available from 10 Mbps up to 1 Gbps connection speeds to suit the bandwidth demands of the applications in use, offers West Midlands Fire Service an extremely high-speed networking infrastructure with unparalleled flexibility to support any further growth plans.