Victoria inks $70m emergency alert deal

Victoria’s Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority (ESTA) has awarded a $70 million network maintenance and operations contract to former subcontractor Visionstream.

Under the new contract, Visionstream would support more than 40,000 personal pagers for emergency services personnel during significant weather, fire and other emergency events.

The network involved some 228 base station sites, points of presence message feed sites, control and disaster recovery message processing sites and a 24/7 network operations centre.

The Leighton Group subsidiary was previously a major subcontractor in a seven-year, $100 million contract that established ESTA’s Emergency Alerting System in 2005.

It had worked under primary supplier, Sydney-based VEC Network on the original contract, which called for the provision of alerting devices for about 29,000 personnel from the Country Fire Authority, Victorian State Emergency Service and Rural Ambulance Victoria.

The new four-year contract with Visionstream commenced in November 2012. A spokesman for the service provider said VEC would no longer be involved in the deal.