UK Coastguard To Replace Emergency Radio Network

More than £170 million is to be spent on installing a new emergency radio network for HM Coastguard.

- Katy Stickland

The aim is to improve the reliability of communication transmissions to and from vessels at sea and the UK’s nine Coastguard Operations Centres and one National Maritime Operations Centre in Fareham.

Old existing copper telephone wiring will be replaced with modern fibre-based technology to each of the HM Coastguards 155 remote radio sites, which monitor VHF and MF radio transmissions from vessels.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency’s (MCA) commercial and programmes director, Damien Oliver said the current network, X21 Kilostream, was around 40 years old, and, although it was 100 per cent reliable, it was expensive to run, particularly after it was withdrawn from the market by BT, making spare parts difficult to source.