Members are asked to note that the recently installed Local Area Network (LAN) and Shropshire Council provided Wide Area Network (WAN) are now fully operational with real-time fallback and disaster recovery arrangements in place at Telford Central. Remedial work on the consolidation of servers for optimisation of performance and enhanced security continues, thus enabling a more reliable and supportable network.
Developments are now underway to performance test and install new station end equipment, which will be integrated to the new WAN, with the WAN acting as the primary mobilising bearer for the recently deployed command and control system (completion expected end of March 2012).
Alternative solutions are being evaluated to secure a resilient secondary fallback bearer. A hardware refresh of the wireless network infrastructure is scheduled to improve the consistency, reliability and speed of information updates to the mobile data terminals on fire appliances.
An announcement on the grant allocation to support Fire Control arrangements post cancellation of the national FiReControl Project is now expected mid-late February 2012. The Government is reviewing 25 bids, 11 from consortia of two or more Fire and Rescue Authorities (of which Hereford and Worcester and this Fire Authority represent one bid) and 14 from single Fire Authorities.
