AnnuAl rEPorT - Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority

ESTA 2007/08 annual report22Highlights of the year include• Establishment of a comprehensive project compliance framework.• Completion of planned coverage enhancement.Network PerformanceThe MDN is required to perform inaccordance with specific key performanceindicators which are defined in theMDN Services Agreement as CustomerSpecified Service Standards. Thesestandards encompass a wide range ofspecified operating requirements such asmessage success rate, system availabilityand turnaround times for unit repairs.The availability of the core network was99.8% for the year. 98.02% of VicPolmessages and 97.62% of MAS messageswere transmitted in less than 30 seconds.Network ActivityA significant function of the MDN isto provide access to ESTA’s CTDnetwork and the LEAP databaseadministered by the Sheriff’s Office.The MDN processed the followingtransactions throughout the2007/08 period:CAD– Victoria Police: 683,707LEAP 3,122,964Sheriff’s Office 10,257CAD – Metropolitan 402,864Ambulance Service:• Completion of a quality audit and customer satisfaction survey.• Completion of a complex system capacity upgrade.• Completion of a favourable gateway review.• Negotiation of outstanding pager liability claims.• Ongoing management of the pager remediation programme.The Emergency Alerting ServiceThe EAS is a dedicated messagingsystem which enables CFA, SES andRAV emergency services staff andvolunteers to be simultaneously alertedto incidents and provided with textmessages by means of pocket pagers.The system operates over the wholeof Victoria by means of some 212radio transceiver sites linked to amessage switching centre and a leasedsatellite service.The EAS was transferred to ESTA inJuly 2007 following an extensive duediligence process. Among other things, asignificant obligation undertaken by ESTAat transition was the management of thechange-over to a more robust designof some 30,000 pagers. The pagerreplacement programme has involvedtechnical certification and a stagedchange-over programme scheduled tobe completed in March 2009.The service has performed to a highstandard over the last year with onlyrelatively minor service discontinuities.These have been accommodated byembedded redundancy systems.In the order of 250,000 messages aretransmitted over the EAS each quarter,however, the service occasionallymust respond to large increases indemand. Following a storm in April2008, message volumes capacity wasexceeded by some 250%, howeveronly 30 emergency messages weredelayed beyond the specified 30second delivery time.ESTA has also continued to work withother agencies to evaluate appropriateopportunities for extension of the service.