Sepura delivers DMR communication solution to Lord’s, the Home of Cricket

With an aim to transform towards next generation communications, Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) has chosen Sepura Digital Mobile Radio Technology (DMR) to improve communications at Lord's Cricket Ground in North West London.

The contract with the prestigious sports club was signed by Chatterbox Limited, Sepura's channel partner for the South East of England.

MCC's legacy analogue system had become obsolete and no longer met their communications needs; the Club required a new communication solution that would provide radio coverage of the site and immediate surrounding area. Chatterbox carried out a site survey before delivering the successful tender proposal completed in partnership with Sepura. Sepura radios covered the site with outstanding audio clarity: a very useful feature on busy match days when crowd noise can be very high.

MCC wanted the benefit of an all-weather and, most importantly, waterproof radio, as most of the radios are used outdoors. MCC chose Sepura DMR technology because of the hand-portables' IP67 rating for protection against dust and water ingress.

The new digital communication system, operational since April 2015, has been used for the official start of the 2015 cricket season, comprising the first Investec Test Match, England v New Zealand and will be used for the second Investec Ashes Test Match, England v Australia in July.

Under the new five year contract, Chatterbox has supplied MCC with over 80 SBP8040 Sepura keypad/display hand-portables for everyday use by catering, security, maintenance and management teams. On match days, over 360 additional SBP8340 non-keypad hand-portables are used by stewards for crowd control whilst Sepura's SBM8040 desktop mobile radios will be deployed in the ground's control room.

Gary Leatherby, Managing Director of Chatterbox said: "Sepura's handsets are rugged and robust, making them ideal for outdoor use. The radios' ease of use is also an important feature as it enables MCC to train temporary staff quickly and efficiently, in addition the coloured bezels allow easier identification of the allocated radios by the different teams of users. The radios also offer the potential to programme advanced supervisory and health & safety features such as transmit interrupt, lone worker and man down, should these be required by MCC in the future."

Cliff Davies, DMR Business Development Manager for Sepura says: "We are delighted with this prestigious contract win as it further cements our growing partnership with Chatterbox.Our DMR radios are the perfect fit for this setting - tough, dependable, loud and highly featured. Our radios' advanced features, such as encryption, zone selection and private call with caller ID deliver outstanding benefits to MCC teams of users. Our fleet of short term hire radios allow customers to provide critical communications for major events whilst minimising their operational costs".