A case study from Sepura on how that company’s Short Data Application (SDA) enabled users at multiple venues to simultaneously submit standardised status updates and incident reports to the Johannesburg Joint Command Centre. As well as minimising voice traffic on the TETRA network – freeing the channels for high priority calls – every communication was automatically captured and logged for analysis and review, the firm says.
Thanks to short data messaging organisers managed the complex task of coordinating operations across 37 venues. Using intelligence from users on the ground, organisers stayed ahead of the game when it came to responding to a variety of situations.<br><br>The challenge facing the Johannesburg 2010 Organising Committee in the run up to the World Cup was to ensure they were prepared to deal with any eventuality. Communications were key to managing incident response and service delivery throughout the games.<br><br>“This was the first event of its scale we’d ever hosted, so we were preparing for the unpredictable,” explains Neels de Klerk, Station Commander at the Joint Command Centre (JCC). “We needed to ensure continuous communications between the JCC – which in the event of a major incident doubles as a Disaster Operations Centre –and each of the 37 individual Venue Operations Centres (VOCs).”<br><br>Minimising voice traffic on the Johannesburg City TETRA network was a priority. With the number of users on the network, there was a concern of adversely loading the system – leading to vital communications being compromised. Sepura’s Short Data Application (SDA), enabling data messages to be sent over a control channel from one of the local TETRA base station sites, proved the perfect solution.<br><br>“Automating short data messages from users’ radios to the dispatchers at the command centre enabled us to maintain the flow of essential information, while freeing up the local traffic channels for high priority and emergency calls,” says de Klerk.
Founded in the UK in 2002, Sepura, a supplier of digital private mobile radios, recently joined the Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) Association. For more details visit –
