Priority access to data services for volunteer Coastguards

[CoastiePeter]

Hello, I've been using EE for the past 6 years or so predominantly along the UK coastline where I work as a volunteer Coastguard. To save money on a Paging system, our 999 Emergency Search & Rescue service now relies on Alerting and Tasking of our teams for Category One responders using private mobile telephone networks and personal telephones which work reasonably well, but only if you have a good network provider and associated coverage. I was wondering if there was any add-ons to our existing personal contracts, or any other option available, that would enhance the speed and reliability of our alerting and tasking data messages, and perhaps our accessibility to the local networks in times of heavy tourist usage? This of course would have a direct benefit on our response times and lifesaving efforts.  Your comments, thoughts & ideas appreciated.  Pete

[bristolian]

EE supports the Emergency Services Network - recommend a read of https://business.ee.co.uk/large-business/esn/ 

[CoastiePeter]

Hi

Yes understood, but we are private volunteer subscribers using our own mobile contracts, not Government paid.

P

[Matt_124]

Hi @CoastiePeter,

Not entirely sure how your service/organisation operates but at the bottom of that link it does give details in regard to getting access to the ESN which would be the ideal solution.

Particularly it does say to contact the Home Office Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme if you would like to request access.

The consumer mobile network is not enabled in such a way to support certain plans having absolute priority on cells reliably for a variety of reasons. There are measures that can prioritise users but they aren't really there for Consumer customer plans (apart from "Network Prioritisation" on the All-Rounder and Full Works plans but it doesn't seem to have much of an impact at all in my experience).

[bristolian]

The priority access you seem to be seeking, is facilitated on the core network rather than RAN, I would be interested in the degree of congestion you experience in your locality.

Where, roughly, in the UK are you? I would certainly be interested to know where network congestion is such an issue that dual-carrier 800Mhz/1800Mhz service is not deployed.

There are some "network boosts" available on high-end consumer plans which use QoS-based priority for data access, but reports of these do vary and much depends how important it is to you, when the experience may well not be any different the vast majority of the time. Voice calls take priority over data usage in any case.

[CoastiePeter]

Thanks

The last paragraph i found particularly interesting. Anything that could priority users would potentially be helpful

P

[bristolian]

Take a read of https://business.ee.co.uk/help/network-and-coverage/network-boost/ - there should be an equivalent page somewhere on the consumer site also.

Be sure that the priority it offers is what you seek.