In the recent London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, a number of technologies where chosen for trials in conjunction with the UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), and Security Innovation and Consortium (SITC). One of the lucky technologies was Over-C, a software application company that uses NFC handsets for asset tracking and procedural compliance.
Over-C had been given the responsibility of tracking police speed boats operating on river Thames. To achieve this, the company had to find a trustworthy link for the communication of critical information and maintain that connection if at all the venture was to succeed.
With the Metropolitan Police operating alongside Kent and Essex Police Marine Units on the 96-mile length of the river, native based marine tracking technologies would have been a sour gamble in positioning the fleet of over 18 vessels in the river. What made this trickier was the fact that the Police needed to ensure the safety of officers on and off board and to determine the specific deployment of each officer and their availability.
In bridging the problem, Over-C could definitely not rely on any single network which would mean that the system has a distinct single point of failure bearing in mind that the games had attracted a good deal of people hence possible network congestion.
To go around this, the company solicited for the services of the team at Concirrus. According to Over-C’s CEO, Mike Elliot, Conciruss’ managed-connectivity solution from Telenor Connexion was an almost fool proof guarantee of smooth transmission of data on demand. Concirrus was confident that Telenor Connexion would save them the pain of stalling with an excellent signal that is overloaded.
The call on Concirrus during the Olympics event was a test of the strength of its solutions and the partnerships that the company has made with other partners in the field. Actually, Telenor Connexion ended up stealing the show since it provides a solution to help carry Over-C through the ordeal. The whole test proved that reliable network connectivity is one of the very crucial aspects of any tracking and fleet monitoring system.
Edited by
Brooke Neuman
