Marconi firm unveils first deal

Marconi’s successor company Telent today announced its first major deal after securing a £36m (€52.5m) contract with telecoms group O2.

The equipment specialist was rebranded last week after the former UK industrial giant sold most of its assets to Swedish firm Ericsson.

Telent is focused on services-based work and has secured the contract with O2 to work on Airwave, which provides seamless coverage to 99% of England, Scotland and Wales and is used by 140,000 police officers including British Transport Police as well as other emergency services.

Telent, which employs former Marconi staff at Coventry as well as Basildon and Chorley in England, includes BT, Cable & Wireless and NTL among its customer base.

It will work on the National Fallback Service which provides a backup communications system within minutes should Airwave stop operating.

Telent will deign and build the resilient system using microwave radio circuits.

This means that should the main ground-based network fail, full network communications would continue after only a short delay.

O2 said that in addition to police, a number of Ambulance Trusts and Fire and Rescue Services were also using Airwave, along with the Highways Agency, Emergency Planning Departments and CCTV operators.