Hi-tech Norfolk firm wins police deal

One of the country's biggest police forces has expanded its use of a communications system developed by a husband-and-wife team from Norwich.

Autopage, which is based in Cringleford, develops software systems that integrate the convenience of text and pager messaging into communications and information management systems.

The Thames Valley force has installed a second Autopage 'e-mail gateway server' to extend the scope of a system that has already played a key role in helping the force maintain communications over the past three years.

Thames Valley's expanded Autopage system is now helping the force maintain communications between its newly formed neighbourhood policing teams. These teams comprise police officers and police community support officers who serve 265 communities across Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes.

The expanded system builds on the initial success of the Autopage e-mail gateway system, which has provided links between members of the public and individual police officers and has helped ensure that casualty bureaux can be set up more quickly following major incidents.

“What used to take an hour to make 15 or 20 individual calls can now be done in five to 10 minutes,” said Alan Mitchell, telecoms department technical specialist for the force.

“It really has speeded things up and we can open a casualty bureau within two hours instead of four.”

Autopage director John Blundell, who runs the business with his wife Carolyne, said: “The big development now is that anyone in the force who's authorised to do so can send an e-mail that translates into a text message.

“The system is being used for general purposes to e-mail SMS messages rather than being used simply for sending out an SMS to tell someone they've got voicemail.”

Autopage - which recorded turnover of nearly £100,000 in the year to the end of March - was set up in 1999.

Its typical clients include the emergency services, utility companies, the public sector and business communications firms.

Courtesy of EDP

23 July 2008