As Simon Jee, senior project manager at Computacenter, explains: “We took a number of steps to de-risk the project, including conducting an extensive proof of concept exercise at our Configuration Centre.” Jee and his team used the staging facilities at the centre to replicate the Force’s proposed network architecture, and carried out more than 170 tests to evaluate its resilience, capacity and performance.
“It was essential that the new network had the capacity to support both the Force’s current and future data and voice traffic requirements,” comments Jee. “We also had to implement failover options to guarantee the availability of the network, as an outage could have massive impact on the Force’s ability to respond to incidents.”

The new converged network was completed in 2003. “We will save around 30 per cent on our communications costs each year, and achieve ROI on the project within four years,” comments Barker. “It is also much cheaper for us to expand our communications infrastructure to encompass additional sites, such as a new police station. Whereas before we would have been looking at an investment of around £30,000 to provide the necessary technology, it will now cost us only a few thousand pounds.”
Kent Police has also been able to improve its service levels, as Barker explains: “Prior to the roll-out, our remote sites suffered from bandwidth problems and reduced functionality. The new communications infrastructure enables us to provide a consistent level of service across the county.”

He adds: “An independent internal audit judged the roll-out to be a model project, both in terms of project management and the cost justification. We have saved more than expected, and there is a definite payback period.”

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Kent Police - Enhanced communications

More and more organisations are converging their data and voice networks to enable them to take advantage of new technologies. Kent Police was quick to recognise the financial and value benefits of using Voice Over IP, resulting in financial savings, enhanced performance levels and consistent communications services across the county .

Kent Police is responsible for policing more than 1,400 square miles and a population of around 1.6 million as well as six million visitors and 36 million cross-channel passengers each year. This makes the county a unique place to police, and presents the Force’s 5,500 police officers and civilian staff with a number of challenges. To meet these, Kent Police takes an intelligence-led approach to policing, which enables it to hone its tactics and crime reduction plans.

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The county is divided into nine policing areas, complemented by specialist units at the Force’s police headquarters in Maidstone. The headquarters are also home to the Force Communications Centre, which provides a centralised call handling facility. The telephone remains the primary means of communication between the Force and the community with the volume of calls rising annually. In 2001/2, the number of 999 calls made to Kent Police was 273,872, which was up more than 50 per cent on the number during 1998/99. It is essential that Kent Police and its 55 county-wide sites have access to a reliable and cost-effective telephony system. As Andy Barker, acting head of the Information Services Directorate (ISD) at Kent Police, explains: “Communication is key to policing – easy and efficient access to people and information is vital. Our existing system was based on an ageing infrastructure, and we were starting to encounter a number of performance problems, such as outages and incompatibility.”

"“We will save around 30 per cent on our communications costs each year”"

The Force’s ISD opted to address these problems by deploying a leading-edge IP-based communications infrastructure. “Some police forces are reticent to embrace new technology, but we believe it is important to take a forward-looking approach to IT to ensure that we attain the best operational and business advantages for the Force,” comments Barker. “We identified that by converging our data and voice networks and also deploying IP telephony, we would be able to improve the level of service to end users and make significant savings on our communications costs.”

Kent Police had to overcome a number of technical and implementation challenges. “We needed a partner that could deliver a very specific solution,” comments Mark Williams, specialist services manager at Kent Police. For although the force was rolling out VOIP across its network, it still needed to be able to use its existing PBX systems as well as new IP-based handsets. The joint project team also had to meticulously plan the roll-out of a new wide area network that was to underpin the VOIP environment.