Comms overhaul for historic British palaces

Five historic palaces that helped define British history and now attract the awe and intrigue of millions of visitors each year have undergone a comms upgrade provided by Sepura.

The company was chosen to provide DMR Tier II communication systems comprising 500 radios and eight repeaters, which have replaced the legacy analog system at the Tower of London, Kensington Palace, Hampton Court Palace, Banqueting House and Hillsborough Castle.

The palaces are cared for by independent charity Historic Royal Palaces (HRP) and it is anticipated that additional radios will be supplied by Sepura on a hire basis for seasonal events.

“We are delighted to work with Historic Royal Palaces to improve communications at these world-renowned locations,” said Gary Maughan, Sepura’s regional sales director UK&I.

“It was clear from the start that Historic Royal Palaces would demand a level of efficiency, functionality and reliability from their communications network to correspond with their own first-class procedures, which are required to successfully operate celebrated and publicly visited landmarks such as the Tower of London.

“We are pleased that our solutions were able to satisfy these requirements.”

Maughan said it was important to identify each location’s individual challenges in order to provide an appropriate solution.

The Tower of London, just on its own, attracts around 3 million visitors each year.

Sepura said its network of partners from across the country were able to provide local support to the geographically spread locations.

The HRP deployment utilises all of the functionality available on Sepura’s radios, including GPS and personal security applications such as Man-Down and Lone Worker.

The deployment to a digital system was made possible through the company’s analog-to-digital migration procedure. The system has been designed to grow and adapt as HRP’s communications requirements develop.

Commenting on the launch at Kensington Palace, the first location to be deployed last year, Security & Facilities Manager Steve Sullivan said: “We have already noticed that audio quality was immediately much improved…voice signals are stronger and digital noise cancelling means that background noise on transmission is noticeably reduced.

“We anticipate that this deployment will help to increase efficiency and enhance the customer experience for visitors to Kensington Palace.”

Hillsborough Castle was the last network to go live, in a deployment lasting a total of 15 months.

Image caption: The Tower of London, courtesy of Sepura.