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High Integrity Telecommunications System (HITS)

The High Integrity Telecommunications System (HITS) is designed to provide a resilient communications backbone between crisis management centres across the UK. It is designed to remain available in the event of short- or no-notice loss of all or part of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). The resilience will be obtained through a combination of fixed satellite and diverse terrestrial bearers.

The core HITS network will provide a capability in each Police Force Area in England and Wales; in Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast for connections to the Devolved Administrations; and at Central Government Crisis Management Facilities. This network will be augmented by transportable satellite terminals capable of being deployed at short notice to fallback locations in the event that a main centre becomes unavailable (possibly because a major incident has occurred in the immediate vicinity). This will enable Government command and control capability to be extended to UK sites where events have compromised all available telecoms services despite in-build diversity, or to locations where no capability exists.

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