NSW RFS to implement video collaboration

The New South Wales Rural Fire Service (NSW RFS) has contracted Polycom to deploy a video collaboration system for the organisation’s employees and volunteers.

Polycom will provide its RealPresence One system as a subscription service to allow for real-time communication between 900 staff and thousands of volunteer members.

The NSW RFS is responsible for 95% of the state’s fire and emergency services. It has 87 offices across the region.

“Given the highly critical nature of our organisation and what we do, we need to have 100% uptime, 24/7. If the system goes down, people could be stranded and lives could be at risk,” NSW RFS manager for IT Ashley Van Amstel said.

“The virtual nature of the solution increases agility and resilience, providing us with better disaster recovery and easier backups for business continuity in the instance something was to go wrong.”

The organisation will also be able to extend video collaboration capabilities to mobile devices including smartphones and tablets, Amstel said.

The system will be interoperable with other emergency services using different unified communications platforms.

Video collaboration capabilities will also allow for volunteers and staff to receive training without having to visit the NSW RFS’s Lidcombe headquarters.

Image courtesy of Highway Patrol Images under CC