The following represents a summary of items that have come before the Board of the NSW Government Telecommunications Authority.
Government Radio Network (GRN) Performance
The Board noted that GRN is performing within the service level of 99.95%, and that any risks to backhaul network availability is partially mitigated by dual-link paths to most sites using a mixture of network technologies and providers. Ongoing efforts are being undertaken with providers to improve the resiliency and quality of carrier services.
Critical Communications Enhancement Program
The Critical Communications Enhancement Program (CCEP) pilot program is progressing, along with preparation for the approach to the statewide rollout, with an independent benchmarking of costs against domestic and international benchmarks.
Public Safety Mobile Broadband
PSMB is a focus for intergovernmental consideration through the COAG Senior Officials Committee. The Telco Authority continues to provide a lead role for NSW, coordinating between central agencies and emergency services organisations.
Council engagement project
Following successful engagement of councils in metropolitan and regional NSW to gain in-principal agreement to exploring Councils becoming customers of the Government Radio Network. The Authority has started stage 2 of the council engagement project. The key areas of work are ongoing engagement with the 20 merged councils, the creation of a Councils Working Group, and initial engagement with the remaining councils.
Emergency management
The Telco Emergency Management and Network Operations teams were involved in several operations this bushfire and storm season, providing assistance to a number of fire incidents including the Hunter region in December and Central West in January and February. The Authority ensures dedicated duty officers are available to emergency services operations over summer, to provide continued and uninterrupted support to the combat agencies against the threat of fire, storms and floods.
Rod Gilmour, Chairperson
NSW Telco Authority
February 2017