telent wins £25m firefighters' comms contract

Technology services company telent has won an eight-year, £25m comms contract with EADS Defence & Security to support England's Fire and Rescue Service.

Earlier this year, EADS Defence & Security won the original £200m IT contract with the Fire and Rescue Service, to kit out nine new regional control centres with a modern and efficient comms system. The project is known as FiReControl.

telent will provide comms infrastructure to the nine control centres and also to England's 1,410 fire stations - including installing PCs, WLANs, pagers and telephone systems. It will also provide ongoing maintenance and support.

Ian Griffiths, FiReControl project director at EADS Defence & Security, said in a statement: "The new communications infrastructure will offer a secure and resilient network, bringing the same advanced technology, systems and processes to all [regional control centres]."