Press information

Simoco wins the Gerald David OBE award

London 19 September: FCS is pleased to announce that the winner of the Gerald David OBE award for Innovation in Business Radio is Team Simoco for their Xfin Multi site IP soft switching trunked system. The award trophy was presented by Lord David Currie, chairman of Ofcom, at the FCS AGM and Awards event on 12 September.

Roy Pierce chairman of the judging panel said, “This year the judging panel had a tough time selecting between applications from a very diverse range of products, services and size of company. We congratulate the winners Team Simoco and we also selected two runners up in this closely contested award. They were London Buses for their iBus and CarTel for their low cost two site trunked system.

“The level and quality of entries is very encouraging and demonstrates that the Business Radio sector is very alive, dynamic and adding the new emerging technologies to the well tried and trusted systems used for many years by commercial and industrial organisations throughout the UK.”

Mark Thomas, Director of Strategic Marketing at Team Simoco on receiving the award said,

“Team Simoco is delighted to receive the Gerald David OBE Award for Innovation in Business Radio 2007 and we are particularly pleased at winning the award for the second time in three years. The competition was particularly strong this year and our success reflects the strength of Xfin IP technology and our ability to keep one step ahead of the market”.

Martin Davey, Director of Technical Services Group (TSG) of London Buses said: "The TSG team are delighted to receive the recognition of the FCS for our latest project - iBus. This £117m, state-of-the-art radio and Automatic Vehicle Location system will help London Buses deliver a more reliable, consistent bus service across our fleet of 8,000 buses. iBus uses an integrated approach to wireless using the best attributes of PBR, GSM, GPRS and Wireless LAN technologies in a solution that, as a whole, is greater than the sum of its parts and provides increased capacity as well as enabling new services for bus operators and passengers alike."

Iain Sharratt of CarTel Communications, said “CarTel is delighted to receive the runner up prize in the coveted ‘Gerald David OBE Award for Innovation’ for the design of the low cost Duo MPT1327 system, which complements the Tait TN1100 trunked system. The Duo enables a single site Tait TN1100 to be expanded to a two site system without expensive interconnecting copper leased lines or microwave links. Typical applications include airports, bus companies and shopping complexes”.

Notes for editors

The Federation of Communication Services- FCS- is the Trade Association for the communication services sector representing companies delivering products and services by means of radio, mobile, fixed and IP telephony.

FCS Awards are presented annually in four categories: business radio, mobile equipment installer, service provider and VoIP

The judging panel for the 2007 award was

Roy Pierce, Managing Director of Procom, chairman of the FCS Business Radio Group

Don Baker, Consultant

David Britland, Consultant

David Hosie, Technical Director, Audiolink

Paul Jarvis, Head Business Radio, Ofcom

Jacqui Brookes, CEO, FCS

For press enquiries please contact Jacqui Brookes on 020 8249 6363