A $175 million contract awarded to Motorola to improve South Australia’s emergency communications should help grey nomads travelling in remote areas feel a little safer.
The network will provide 99.99% availability to emergency services and ensure teams can communicate reliably to coordinate responses, whether managing day-to-day operations or in times of crises.
South Australia’s emergency services minister Tony Piccolo said the greatest benefit of the radio network upgrade was increased safety for both the community and emergency service personnel.
“The South Australian Government is making a significant investment to give our emergency services secure and reliable voice communications,” Mr Piccolo said. “This will support them from their day-to-day operational activities through to times of emergency or crisis.”
The new South Australian radio network, or SAGRN, will have integrated voice and data capabilities including new infrastructure for voice, dispatch consoles, call logging, network linking and paging.
Trevor Wright from William Creek in outback SA told the ABC that locals had been calling for improved coverage for decades, especially on the Oodnadatta and Birdsville tracks, where he said there was little or no coverage at all.
“When you’ve got a case of someone suffering major trauma, or had a heart attack and they can’t get through and get expert advice, there desperately needs to be a system in place that is reliable and of a high standard,” he said.
State Emergency Service chief officer Chris Beattie told the ABC the revamp would help them get a signal in more places.
“For my agency, there are a number of minor pockets, particularly where there was overlapping between nodes, so we’re confident that this upgrade will address some of these concerns,” he said.
The upgrade will take two years but Motorola will continue to maintain the system for a total of seven years.
