BT SmartNumbers service supports Emergency Volunteers

London, England. July 2007

BT today announced that it will be improving the communications of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (Princess Royal’s Volunteer Corps), affectionately known as the FANY, with its BT SmartNumbers service. BT SmartNumbers will provide the FANYs dispersed teams of female volunteers with greater security and ensure they are more responsive in crisis situations.

During an emergency, BT SmartNumbers will enable the FANY to set up a virtual call centre allowing the entire volunteer network to be called instantly. A centralised directory service will enable duty officers to alert volunteers with special skills, using text or voice mail, and then monitor their availability as they log on.

Under the terms of the proposal, each FANY volunteer will be given her own personal BT SmartNumber: a virtual telephone number so she can be contacted on any phone, anywhere in the world.

Mark Quartermaine, managing director, BT Government Services, said: “In times of emergency, it is essential that those trying to help the distressed are not hampered by technology letting them down. This will revolutionise the communications of this active, hardworking organisation by giving them a single number and voicemail system to manage.”

Staff Commander Joan Drummond, 2IC FANY, said, “This is the perfect system for us — and ideally suited for any emergency service. BT SmartNumbers offers an outstanding day-to-day system, with numerous applications that can be introduced seamlessly to respond and adapt to an unfolding crisis.”

Unforeseen events such as terrorist attack, freaks of climate, transport accident, pandemic, total infrastructure failure, bomb scare, fire and flood — or ‘rising-tide events’ such as pandemic — may deny staff access to FANY HQ, and stop them taking calls. No assumption can be made that a company’s network or infrastructure will survive or be operable.

“BT Smartnumbers gives us the ability to set an emergency virtual HQ ‘on the fly’ if access to our Headquarters is compromised”, continues Drummond. “This would enable extra FANYs to be brought in to the telephone answering team without leaving home.”

BT SmartNumbers offers significant business continuity benefits as it ‘sits above’ the existing network away from FANY HQ, and is therefore fully resilient against failure. BT SmartNumbers enables staff to dynamically pull calls to another location or to alternative headquarters; they can log on anywhere, on any telephone anywhere – landlines, mobile or state of the art VoIP — ensuring that calls can continue to flow as normal.

On a day-to-day basis, BT SmartNumbers will give the FANY a much more efficient telephony service with many benefits. Based on a combination of predefined rules and personal set-up, calls destined for a FANY can be delivered to any available handset in the office; a mobile or even a FANY’s home.

The SmartNumbers service will soon be available to other public sector bodies, including the Ministry of Defence, via the Defence Fixed Telecommunications Service (DFTS) and the police.

About FANY

The FANY is a registered charity which provides fully-trained teams of female volunteers to back up the civil and military authorities in times of emergency. Now celebrating its centenary, the Corps is on call 24 hours a day and has been called out to assist at every major incident in London for the past 35 years, including the July 2005 bombings. Teams are trained to assist the Metropolitan Police and Special Branch; Casualty Bureau for the City of London Police; Major Incident enquiry line for the Corporation of London and provide assistance to the Civil Contingency Reaction Force.

During the Great War the FANY ran field hospitals, drove ambulances and set up canteens for the front line fighting units in France and Flanders. In the 2nd World War it was the FANY who staffed Special Operations Executive (SOE), working as code-breakers, wireless operators, linguists and undercover agents.