Victorian emergency services extend Motorola comms deal

Victoria’s emergency services have extended their deal with Motorola Solutions Australia to supply and upgrade the mission critical Metropolitan Mobile Radio network (MMR). 

The network – used by Victoria Police, Ambulance Victoria and the Metropolitan Fire Brigade – provides digitally encrypted voice communication for the services throughout the greater metropolitan Melbourne area.

It comprises more than 8000 portable and vehicle radio sets, facilitated by a backhaul network comprising over 70 base stations. It used daily by first-responders who made more than 40 million push-to-talk voice transmission calls across the network last year.

Later this year, Victoria State Emergency Service, Corrections Victoria and Life Saving Victoria will also join the network.

Motorola Solutions has supplied the MMR since 2005, replacing the previous analogue radio system. Today, the $261 million managed services contract to supply communications was extended for seven years, with an opportunity to extend for a further five years.

It is the highest per annum deal ever signed by Motorola in Australia and among the largest worldwide, the company said.

“Emergency services depend on having ‘always on’, secure and reliable communications for their daily work,” said Motorola Solutions vice president and managing director, Steve Crutchfield.

“For the past 13 years the MMR network has provided essential communications for Victoria’s first responders when they have needed it most. This includes uninterrupted coverage during Victoria’s tragic Black Saturday bushfires in 2009 and reliable performance during many other major emergencies.”

In addition to a slew of upgrades to the network, Motorola Solutions will provide enhanced data services and incremental safety features including GPS and location services, to enable agencies to better manage their vehicles and personnel.

The service will also provide customised online reporting, to supply emergency services with information about radio network usage.

As part of the deal Motorola Solutions will also conduct a trial of a software-defined push-to-talk solution to extend network access to more users over broadband and a trial of a strategic interface to Triple Zero emergency call and dispatch systems.