• Category

  • Content Type

Advertisement

Fibre Optic Communication Network for Public Safety Agencies

March 28, 2008

The Full Story

The Ministry of Transport and Works is to install a fibre optic communication network for the national public safety agencies.
This new network, which is to be part of the proposal to charge utility companies, will be one of the key areas of focus for the Ministry.
“One of the key areas of focus as it relates to charges for the use of the public rights-of-way is to help to set up a network to help the communication needs of the national public service agencies,” said Communications Manager at the Ministry of Transport and Works, Reginald Allen.
Public safety agencies include the police, ambulance services, the fire brigade and the traffic management authorities.
Mr. Allen, who was speaking in an interview with JIS News, explained that this new communication network would not only help improve the response time among the public safety agencies, but would also enhance data sharing while significantly reducing their communication costs.
“We’ll use fibre optic cable network to get these agencies connected in a way that calls between them are really like extensions. In other words, as far as telecommunication is concerned, they will be like inter-department [so that] you’ll be able to get these agencies to correspond with each other without undue consideration, in terms of the length of time or the volume of usage, because these will become calls that are not billed,” he pointed out.
Recently, the Minister of Transport and Works, Mike Henry informed JIS News that a proposal to charge utility companies for use of the rights-of-way was before Cabinet. Under the new policy, “no private entity is to be allowed to profit from the use of the public rights-of-way without compensating the public for its use.”
According to Mr. Allen, rights-of-way are not just the sidewalks, but “covers everything that is in the air, on the ground and below.sidewalks, light posts, billboards and whatever is underneath [such as] water, sewage, telecommunication, among others.”

Last Updated: March 28, 2008

Skip to content