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Speaker 1: A new radio network has been set up for our

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Speaker 1: emergency services. It'll see police, fire and ambulance all move

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Speaker 1: to the same digital system for the first time, replacing

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Speaker 1: the aging and sometimes failing analog system. It follows a

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Speaker 1: trial in Canterbury. Steve Ferguson is the director of Next

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Speaker 1: Generation Critical Communications and he's with me this morning, kidday Steve.

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Speaker 2: Right, how are you good?

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Speaker 1: Thank you? What will this actually change for our first responders?

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Speaker 1: Will will they be able to talk to each other

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Speaker 1: through this system?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, believer. The technology we've got today has done a

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Speaker 2: great job over thirty years, but it's old and they

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Speaker 2: cannot communicate together in an emergency situation. They can't coordinate responses.

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Speaker 2: So you've got police via emergency had to hono, Sir

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Speaker 2: John Wellington free. They cannot communicate across the network together.

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Speaker 2: This will give them that opportunity. But more than that,

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Speaker 2: it's digitized, as you said in your intro there and

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Speaker 2: today the public can listen into their comms and so

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Speaker 2: can the bad guys. So it creates all sorts of

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Speaker 2: challenges for first responders trying to save key life.

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Speaker 1: Well, so, because I know that there's some journalists who

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Speaker 1: like to listen in and find out where you know,

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Speaker 1: where the drama is happening. Will they not be able

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Speaker 1: to do that either? Is it totally encrypted?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the news for first responders and keywisers, it is

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Speaker 2: totally encrypted. We're dealing with people's lives, we're dealing with

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Speaker 2: personal situations, and it's important that we get the first

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Speaker 2: responders pools so they can communicate well and simply an easily.

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Speaker 2: Today's net we won't do that. So no, going forward,

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Speaker 2: it will be encrypted and it will give the first

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Speaker 2: responsibility to communicate much more easily. Today because of the

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Speaker 2: situation we have with this whole technology, they've got to

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Speaker 2: get quite innovative of how to communicate and not signal

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Speaker 2: to people that shouldn't be listening as to what they're doing.

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Speaker 1: Using lots of codes and stuff like that. How many

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Speaker 1: radios do you actually do you actually need to replace.

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Speaker 2: Well, we're replacing the whole network, Ryan, We're replacing five

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Speaker 2: hundred radio towers and somewhere in the order of fifteen

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Speaker 2: thousand units that for first responders. We've already this is

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Speaker 2: part of a complementary of services. So we've already rolled

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Speaker 2: out roaming service on cellulars for first responders. Last year,

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Speaker 2: a world first, actually were teed up the two mobile

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Speaker 2: network operators and we've rolled out fifteen thousand some cards

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Speaker 2: for the first responses. They con communicate across that network,

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Speaker 2: so we're doing the same with the radio networks.

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Speaker 1: Fascinating stuff, Steve, Thank you for that. Steve Ferguson, Director

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Speaker 1: of Next Generation Critical Communications. It does seem strange, doesn't it.

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Speaker 1: We're not strange, but a little antiquated that our ambulance officers,

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Speaker 1: our police officers, our fire service can't actually talk to

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Speaker 1: each other when they are coordinating on an emergency. Thankfully

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Speaker 1: that will be coming to an end.

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