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Advanced Wireless Communications Demonstrated in London Subway



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Jul 17, 2006, News Report

A successful demonstration of a new wireless communications system for the London Underground took place on Monday. The demonstration of the RECoN wireless system by British company Primetech, partnered with Anvil Technologies, took place at the Aldwych tube station in London. It illustrated how quickly the system can be deployed at an incident site.

In this case, within 10 minutes Voice over IP, live video and data was transmitted from the Aldwych platform level, six stories below ground, to the surface and via satellite over the Internet. An interoperable communication system was also demonstrated, providing first responders using different radio systems, regular or mobile phones, the ability to talk with each other above and below ground.

"RECoN provides more than just voice communication," said Henry Walker, managing director of Primetech. "Incident commanders will benefit significantly from the enhanced situational awareness, that is, the ability to view live data streamed from an incident. They will also be able to retrieve critical or sensor data."

The London Assembly Report on the July 7, 2005 London terrorist bombings said that the key to an effective response to a major or catastrophic incident is communications. "The underlying technology is already in use with various agencies and armed forces globally," said Walker. "It is easy to use, lightweight, deploys in minutes, is highly secure and can be carried by a person anywhere, anytime. Running off batteries, generators or solar panels, it is not dependent on local power supply."

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