Department of Environment, Land, Water, and Planning, VIC, Australia

Following an extensive tender process, a Telstra-led consortium with Tait Communications and AA Radio won the radio replacement contract to help make Victoria's emergency services personnel and Victorian communities safer, with state-of-the-art, open standards-based radios.

6,000 Tait VHF 9480 series mobile and portable radios will be installed in firefighting vehicles, aircraft, incident control centers, fire towers and work centers throughout Victoria, Australia. Installation is scheduled for completion ahead of the 2014/15 fire season.

The new 9480 series radios are compatible with the existing DELWP / CFA communications infrastructure, the Victorian State Mobile Radio trunked network, and DELWP / CFA Incident Channel Networks and fire-ground communications. Interoperability with State Emergency Services (SES) and bordering states' communications systems has also been incorporated.

The new multi-mode 9480 series radios (conventional analog, MPT 1327 and P25) are open standards-based and allow for an easy transition to the new P25 emergency service standards and planned digital future for Victorian communications networks."Each radio unit will be equipped with a GPS tracking system enabling incident managers to track the location of vehicles and firefighters in real time - improving fire-ground operations, logistics and firefighter safety," said Ryan Smith, Victoria's Minister for Environment and Climate Change.