Mese: Aprile 2021

Firefighters are an extremely important resource for a country. They provide an unparalleled support to local communities in many fields, not just related to fire, but whenever lives are in danger because of floods, earthquakes, incidents, fires, smoke, and many other possibly dramatic events and/or in presence of dangerous substances. They therefore deserve our admiration and thankfulness. Their competence and strong capability of facing such difficult scenarios is based on their excellent training and coordination. This latter requires the use of advanced technological communication systems and solutions, capable of giving central operative rooms the means for timely alerting the personnel for a quick intervention and for coordinating their work.

Following the European directives on the Standard Emergency Number 112, the operative room in the city of Brescia (Northern Italy) has been upgraded with 6 new operative positions with radio and telephone communication capabilities. These constitute the core of the coordination capacity of firefighters in their area of competence. SITTI contributed to the success of the upgrade through the supply of the working positions connected to a new Voice Communication System (VCS) belonging to the MULTIFONO® M800IP® family.

Before the installation of the new positions, the operative room already had another 6 positions with similar functionalities. These latter have been moved to form a completely separated emergency room. The two rooms are both operational, one being the backup of the other one. They can however work together as a joint operative room in case of heavy emergencies or natural disasters; in this case 12 positions can be used at the same time to give the population the best service possible.

SITTI is very proud to have contributed to the upgrade of these operative rooms, which will be followed by similar activities at all other Italian firefighters operative rooms, so that all brigades will be equipped with their main and backup operative rooms. The M800IP® VCS by SITTI once again proved its flexibility and capability of being implemented in different fields, by giving users the best tools for integrated radio and telephone links, wherever secure, configurable and controlled communications are required.

Edinburgh, Scotland, April 2021 – An important result has been achieved in recent days at Edinburgh Airport. Air Navigation Solutions (ANSL), the resident Air Navigation Service Provider (ANSP), successfully completed the transition to the new Voice Communication System (VCS) provided by SITTI. The old system, which has been serving the Scottish capital for many years, has been definitively switched off in favour of a new modern Voice over IP (VoIP) system.

SITTI, world leading supplier of VCS systems, has been awarded the supply of a full standard compliant new voice switching solution that represents a big step forward for the modernization of the local Air Traffic Control (ATC) infrastructure. This big success is the result of three concurrent and integrated aspects, which greatly contributed to the final result:

1. the VCS itself, the best solution on the market for the management of airport ATC
2. the high level of professionalism of ANSL staff
3. collaboration between ANSL and SITTI personnel which enabled the switch over to take place in spite of challenges created by Covid-19

A similar project is underway at Gatwick, the London airport managed by ANSL, where another similar VCS is completing its fine tuning to shortly become fully operational.

Both systems belong to the MULTIFONO® M800IP® family developed by SITTI in full accordance with the latest standards in the air management and air traffic control fields issued by EUROCONTROL and EUROCAE, with special focus on the ED-137 VoIP standard, which M800IP® is fully compliant to. M800IP® systems have undergone countless interoperability tests and operational assessments around the globe, offering advanced interfacing capabilities, reliability and flexibility. These VCS systems are equipped with interface units for connecting both digital and analogue radios and telephones and converting them to standard ED-137 VoIP links.

The VCS replacement at Edinburgh and Gatwick is driven by ANSL’s commitment to providing a very high level of service to airports and airlines through innovation and future proof solutions for integrated and efficient air traffic management processes. The productive collaboration between ANSL and SITTI made it possible to tackle the sometimes complex operational aspects and situations in the Air Traffic Control field, where the main focus is to ensure and increase flight safety.