Steve Ferguson: Next Generation Critical Communications Director on the revamping of emergency service communication

There are hopes a revamp of emergency service communication will streamline responses.  

Five hundred radio towers and 15 thousand units for first responders are being switched out to make way for a new digital, and encrypted, radio communication system.  

Politicians and experts say the current analogue system is deteriorating and needs to be replaced.  

Next Generation Critical Communications Director Steve Ferguson told Ryan Bridge it's worked well, but it's time to move on.  

He says a digital system will mean better co-ordination between Police, Fire and Emergency, and ambulance services. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
A new radio network has been set up for our
emergency services. It'll see police, fire and ambulance all move
to the same digital system for the first time, replacing
the aging and sometimes failing analog system. It follows a
trial in Canterbury. Steve Ferguson is the director of Next
Generation Critical Communications and he's with me this morning, kidday Steve.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Right, how are you good?

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Thank you? What will this actually change for our first responders?
Will will they be able to talk to each other
through this system?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, believer. The technology we've got today has done a
great job over thirty years, but it's old and they
cannot communicate together in an emergency situation. They can't coordinate responses.
So you've got police via emergency had to hono, Sir
John Wellington free. They cannot communicate across the network together.
This will give them that opportunity. But more than that,

(00:52):
it's digitized, as you said in your intro there and
today the public can listen into their comms and so
can the bad guys. So it creates all sorts of
challenges for first responders trying to save key life.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Well, so, because I know that there's some journalists who
like to listen in and find out where you know,
where the drama is happening. Will they not be able
to do that either? Is it totally encrypted?

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Yeah, the news for first responders and keywisers, it is
totally encrypted. We're dealing with people's lives, we're dealing with
personal situations, and it's important that we get the first
responders pools so they can communicate well and simply an easily.
Today's net we won't do that. So no, going forward,
it will be encrypted and it will give the first

(01:39):
responsibility to communicate much more easily. Today because of the
situation we have with this whole technology, they've got to
get quite innovative of how to communicate and not signal
to people that shouldn't be listening as to what they're doing.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Using lots of codes and stuff like that. How many
radios do you actually do you actually need to replace.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Well, we're replacing the whole network, Ryan, We're replacing five
hundred radio towers and somewhere in the order of fifteen
thousand units that for first responders. We've already this is
part of a complementary of services. So we've already rolled
out roaming service on cellulars for first responders. Last year,
a world first, actually were teed up the two mobile

(02:22):
network operators and we've rolled out fifteen thousand some cards
for the first responses. They con communicate across that network,
so we're doing the same with the radio networks.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Fascinating stuff, Steve, Thank you for that. Steve Ferguson, Director
of Next Generation Critical Communications. It does seem strange, doesn't it.
We're not strange, but a little antiquated that our ambulance officers,
our police officers, our fire service can't actually talk to
each other when they are coordinating on an emergency. Thankfully
that will be coming to an end.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
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Speaker 1 (02:56):
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