Sigma wins £6m fire service deal

Dublin-based telecoms firm Sigma Wireless Communications has won a £6 million (€7.6 million) deal to deliver a new communications network for the fire brigade. The network should cut down emergency response times and enable the fire service to coordinate its crews more efficiently.

Sigma Group managing director Mr Tony Boyle also confirmed the firm wanted to enter the telecoms market as a mobile virtual network operator. A virtual operator would offer mobile phone services to customers by leasing minutes from a network provider such as Eircell, Meteor or Digifone.

Mr Boyle said Sigma was in talks with all three operators and had a team to study the technical requirements for virtual operators.

Meanwhile, Sigma's multimillion pound deal with the Eastern Region Fire Service is part of a project established by the Department of the Environment and local fire authorities.

Sigma has been appointed prime contractor and will manage the project with partners, including France's Bull Information Systems.

The new system, the computer-aided mobilisation project eastern region (Camp East), will provide an advanced mobilisation system covering 100 fire stations in Leinster, Cavan and Monaghan.

Camp East will be coordinated from an emergency control centre in Tara Street fire station and should enable fire officers to communicate more effectively while in service. It will provide three VHF communications channels. One is a local channel, enabling fire crews to communicate with each other and with other crews in their area. The second is a transit channel, which provides communications with the fire tenders when they are on route to an incident. The third transmits data from the control centre to all of these units.

Sigma has already completed work on the design and installation of a microwave across 20 hilltop sites to form the backbone of the new network. It will now start to install the integrated communications system, Bull's computerised mapping/dispatch system and the telecom rack infrastructure for all 100 fire stations.

When the system goes live at the end of 2002, emergency fire calls will be routed to an operator at the Tara Street centre, who will locate the fire on a computerised map. A database will identify the best available fire station to deal with the call depending on the type of fire, the equipment required and which stations are free to respond.

Mr Tony Maguire, managing director of Sigma Wireless, said the system would be especially useful outside Dublin, where all fire stations are unmanned. He said the new system would automatically page local fire-fighters as soon as a call was received. Previously a call would have to be made to the fire officer's home. The station officer would then have to alert the local crew.