Over-C, Concirrus and Telenor Connexion partnered to create communications solutions for tracking of police speed boats. During the recent London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics a number of technologies were chosen to be trialed in conjunction with the UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), and the Security Innovation & Technology Consortium (SITC).
British police speed in a Rigid Inflatable Boat (RIB) along the river Thames … courtesy of sinodefenceforum.com
One of those technologies was Over-C, an innovative software application company using NFC handsets for asset tracking and procedural compliance. Over-C had been selected to track the police speed boats operating on the river Thames. Over-C needed to find an effective solution for communication of critical information and maintaining reliable connectivity was key.
The Metropolitain Police operate alongside Kent and Essex Police Marine Units to patrol and secure the 96 mile length of the River Thames. Traditional radio based marine tracking technologies can sometimes struggle to deliver accurate positioning for the fleet of 18 vessels on the river.
In addition the Police need to ensure the safety of the Officers on and off board and to know which Officer is deployed on which vessel and their tactical capability. It was widely known that relying on any one network meant having a single point of failure and the nature of the games meant that public use of a carrier’s network may well overwhelm that network resulting in delayed or non-transmitted information.
Mike Elliott, CEO of Over-C, stated “We knew that we needed to have the ultimate in reliable communications and our first call was to the team at Concirrus”, Elliott added “with the managed connectivity solution that they provided from Telenor Connexion, we were almost guaranteed to get data out as and when it was needed and because of this our trial was a complete success”.
Andrew Yeoman, CEO of Concirrus stated “The Olympic games is one of the most demanding events that we could have imagined. We’ve all been in situations where you have a signal, but still cannot make a call because the network is overloaded. When dealing with critical information such as this, we knew we only had one viable option – Telenor Connexion.”
Concirrus has entered into a strategic partnership with Telenor Connexion to provide a complete M2M service for their customers.
Craig Holllingworth, COO of Concirrus added “We chose Telenor Connexion because of their outstanding network, immense reliability, superb customer support and more importantly because their people understood our business and supported our requirements—even at dramatically short notice. Partnership is a word that’s often over used, but we’ve seen Telenor Connexion step up and be a true partner to our business”.
Per Simonsen, CEO of Telenor Connexion said “We believe Concirrus will prove very successful as a true turnkey solutions provider and are proud to be their network partner. With their unique combination of technologies; hardware, firmware, data platform and mobile applications, Concirrus is very well positioned to be an important player in the fast growing M2M market.”
Dean Woods, Head of Region UK & Ireland at Telenor Connexion stated “The M2M market is evolving at great speed. We believe that a combination of the innovation and simplicity of the Concirrus turnkey concept in conjunction with the advanced managed connectivity solution of Telenor Connexion will provide an ideal combination to satisfy the needs of this market sector moving forward.”
