Hampshire fire service sets up cross-county 100Mbit/s PSN

Hampshire Fire & Rescue Service has established a public sector network (PSN) in a bid to promote shared services.

The move has also allowed the service to increase its bandwidth.

The network piggy-backs on Virgin Media Business's HPSN2 nationwide fibre optic network.

The PSN will connect 51 fire stations and a headquarters in Eastleigh.

"This network will support the whole business," said Neil Moore, head of ICT at Hampshire Fire & Rescue Service.

"It will primarily support the command and control system, which processes the 40,000 999 calls that are made across the county every year, and all communication and detail sent out to fire stations from this point on will be carried across the network," he added.

"We also send out staff to identify specific on-premise risks around the county, which is helping to build a comprehensive risk map for fire fighters.

"This information is collected on a tablet, which is then returned to a central system, and is finally transmitted via Wi-Fi to fire vehicles when they are in the station. This is all carried over the PSN."

The Virgin contract replaces one Hampshire Fire & Rescue had with Centrix. When the Centrix contract expired, Moore looked for a PSN-compliant network, and found that Virgin Media Business offered the "most competitive" tender.

The PSN also connects to Hampshire County Council, Southampton City Council, Portsmouth City Council and Basingstoke & Deane Borough Council.

"We have a strong links with Hampshire County Council, which provides us with Microsoft Office desktop services over our network," said Moore.

"We also share details with child services about young people that are caught setting fires, and may need further investigating," he added.

Voice over IP (VoIP) and videoconferencing will also be supported on the network, which should result in estimated savings of £80,000 a year.

Some 1,935 staff at Hampshire Fire & Rescue Service will use the network, which can achieve speeds of up to 100Mbit/s.

Hampshire has also been trialling PSN-to-PSN VoIP with Kent Fire Services, with plans to extend this further over the next month or so.

"What I would expect to see in the near future is the development of more PSN-compliant networks by other local authorities, who can then easily exchange sensitive information," said Moore.

"Kent is also on a PSN, and we already share VoIP with their fire services, and plan to have videoconferencing connected in the next month or so," he added.

"It is currently unclear with cross-county connections as to what the additional costs will be, but my assumption is that central government will have a model for charging for these connections if they are done over the Government Conveyance Network."

Established PSNs will be able to connect to one another via a Government Conveyance Network, which is essentially the glue holding everything together, and this will enable a country-wide PSN to develop in a piecemeal fashion.