South Yorkshire Police is switching to a VoIP network to help simplify its communications and provide easier and more direct access with the public.

The force will use a Siemens SIP-Based Unified Communications softswitch to converge voice and data network applications to the 5,500 users scattered across 90 sites in the South Yorkshire region.

"We wanted to maximise the return on our data network investment by adding IP voice capability which is critical to our operations," said Kevin Battersby, network manager at South Yorkshire Police.

"Bringing voice into this environment will considerably reduce costs in telephony, management and administration."

Battersby claimed that the communications system will make it a lot easier for the public to contact relevant people within the force as numbers can be diverted automatically to any terminal.

This should allow cases to be dealt with more efficiently and let people contact the relevant officers directly, no matter where they are.

The core softswitch server hardware, which will replace legacy PABX hardware, will be hosted at two Sheffield facilities to provide the necessary resiliency required by a police force.

The network will also be able to handle videoconferencing between the sites, and Siemens reckons that the system has the flexibility to support potential growth of up to 100,000 users.

To help ensure that the system is secure and there are no quality of service issues, it will be run over a private network rather than over the internet as with most VoIP systems.