ASC, a communications software company, has implemented its communications recording solution EVOIPneo for the ESTER TETRA public safety network in Estonia.
The EVOIPneo system had to be installed within a week to ensure continuity of service. The network required a new communications recording solution when it upgraded from TETRA 5.5 to 6.0 and had to offer 99.9 per cent availability. The TETRA integration allows use by multiple control centres without affecting transmission security.
ESTER has more than 100 base stations and is used by police and rescue officers, border guards and emergency response staff. ASC translated the user interface of EVOIPneo into Estonian and provided training for key personnel. It is the only recording solution certified by Airbus Defence and Space with TETRA release 6.0 and has a multi-tenancy feature that allows separation of data for each organisation and distinct access rights for officials based on seniority.
Each agency can create its own recording configuration with settings established by the Estonian Ministry of the Interior’s Center of Information Technology and Development (SMIT). A workshop and training for multiple user levels at the ASC Academy provided SMIT’s key personnel with knowledge of the installed recording solution and caused SMIT to perform changes to the configuration and to set up new tenants. ASC will provide ongoing customisation and support.
EVOIPneo provides secure recording of voice and data by VoIP, trunked radio and SDS (short data services) and analogue and digital telephony in command-and-control environments. Calls are recorded with time and ID stamps for analysis.
ASC’s EVOIPneo recording has allowed SMIT to conduct post-incident analysis and streamline its processes to take seconds off response times. Supervisors can add comments to calls and email recordings. According to ASC, recordings are “tamper-proof and timestamps are accurate to within a hundredth of a second”. Voice and emotion recognition can assist with investigations.
ESTER is owned by SMIT and is used by eight ministries and 17 agencies on 24/7 basis for professional radio communication needs. Several base stations belonging to Finland's VIRVE network are located on Estonia's north coast to help cover the Gulf of Finland and to ensure intercommunication among the two countries' border guards. About 10,000 users rely every day on ESTER for their communications, including public safety authorities, border guards and prison authorities.
The network, originally built by Cassidian in 2007, was the first to upgrade from TETRA release 5.5 to 6.0.
“ASC's communications recording solution empowers our public safety agencies and makes them the equal of any nation in the European Union,” said Juergen Lasn, leading telecommunication network expert at SMIT. “Our dispatcher receives the best training possible, and our agents can focus on the situation at hand without worrying about the supporting infrastructure.”
Lasn said that his “favourite” feature of EVOIPneo is ‘Last Call Repeat’, a function that lets the responder replay the current call. This can happen while the caller is still on the line.
“SMIT protects people’s lives and property on a daily basis,” said Marco Mueller, COO of ASC. “Only ASC offered a communications recording solution integrated with TETRA 6.0. Moreover, EVOIPneo offers multi-tenancy features to provide strict separation of data for each organisation and distinct access rights for officials based on seniority or on a need-to-know basis.”
