Record figures for Airwave Network on New Year’s Eve
Wednesday, 15 January, 2014
New Year’s Eve figures released by Airwave show that the Network supported some 12,500 users from the London emergency services community during one of their busiest nights of the year. It is essential that frontline responders can instantly communicate with each other at large scale public events such as this, and the Airwave Service is designed to ensure they can do just that.
“Second only to the size and scale of the Notting Hill Carnival each year, New Year’s Eve is an overtly busy time for our London-based customers. This year was no exception and having a communications service they can totally rely on makes all the difference and gives our customers one less thing to worry about,” says Martin Benké, Director Network Operations, Airwave.
The 2013 London New Year’s festivities covered a larger geographic area than previous years with the inclusion of North Greenwich and the subsequent increase of coverage for the more significant travel routes.
“We have been working with our London users since October to plan the event. A number of key sites were identified for expansion to service the increased traffic – including an additional 3,100 police officers from the Metropolitan Police Service out and about on the night,” says Martin.
It is estimated that around 250,000 people braved the weather in the capital to join in the celebrations. During the busiest hour, 105,000 calls were made in London on the Airwave Network, making 820,000 connections between handheld radios and command and control operators. In addition 31,000 short data service (SDS) messages were made by the emergency services on the Airwave Network which kept them connected throughout.
