Energa and SAR to Use TETRA Communications to Enhance Safety at Sea

Energa announced that it will make its TETRA emergency communication system available to save lives at sea. The company offers its communication system as a service to SAR (Maritime Search and Rescue Service) in order be more effective in search and rescue operations at sea. In this way Poland will join neighbour countries who already use their TETRA system sfor similar operations.

Currently, Energa is the only company in Poland that has introduced the TETRA system on a large scale. Thanks to the network security, the sytem is more reliable in the case of natural disasters and mass failures than any other public communicatons network. The network covers the whole distribution area of ​​the Group and covers 85% of the Polish coastline - from Kołobrzeg to the eastern border of the Polish part of the Baltic Sea. Therefore, Energa will make part of the functionality available for the Maritime Search and Rescue Service (SAR).

Energa and SAR have just conducted tests that confirm the suitability of the system at sea. TETRA will improve communication between vessels and their communication with the Maritime Rescue Coordination Center. Poland will join Norway, Finland, Belgium, Lithuania and Denmark, which already use the system to save lives at sea.

Rescuers help all people at sea, regardless of whether they are tourists, commercial, fishing or passenger ships. We also fight threats and oil and chemical pollution of the marine environment - says Maciej Zawadzki, Director of the Maritime Search and Rescue Service.

The commercially used GSM cellular telephone system does not guarantee connectivity during mass failures. GSM networks are not designed to handle traffic in emergency situations. When the number of connections on the network increases significantly, many of them cease to be implemented. This effect, on a much smaller scale, can be observed during the overload of cellular networks on New Year's Eve. The TETRA communication system is an alternative to GSM, which is used only by a certain group of users (eg Energa fitters, SAR service rescuers).

TETRA Energa in numbers

• 139 masts (relays)
• 75,000 sq km (coverage comparable to that of the Czech Republic)
• over 3,000 radiotelephones
• supports over 1000 disconnectors and medium voltage stations (more than 8,000 planned)

At Energa TETRA is used to provide voice communication between the emergency services and dispatchers, as well as transmission of technological data for SCADA systems.