Romteck remote fire monitoring systems

Romteck Australia is a leading provider of remote monitoring systems and services catering to fire services, airports, defense organizations, and mining companies Australia-wide.

One of Romteck’s flagship products, Romteck ASE (Alarm Signaling Equipment), is designed to overcome the shortcomings of more traditional fire alarm systems. It constantly monitors tens of thousands of building alarms and centralizes these at a fire alarm monitoring center that then relays confirmed fire alarm information to the relevant fire and rescue services. The system allows instant knowledge and alerting of fire alarms and provides specific information as to the location, type and extent of the alarm. State-of-the-art cellular technology is therefore essential to the ASE so that it can convey life-or-death critical information in a timely way.

Challenge
When the mobile carrier Telstra announced that it would shut down its GSM network in 2016, Romteck had to rapidly consider how to migrate its product portfolio from 2G to the latest 3G and LTE cellular technologies in order to protect its customers’ investment in their installed equipment.

3G and LTE cellular technology
u-blox provided a solution with its 3G and LTE cellular technology products. In addition to a comprehensive and reliable cellular portfolio, u-blox offers a “nested design” philosophy to maintain form factor and software continuity. This allows customers to easily upgrade their products with each new generation of u-blox global positioning or wireless modules without having to change the PCB designs. It also contributes to maximized investment, simplified logistics, and drastically reduced time-to-market, which was particularly crucial in the case of Romteck.

“We needed reliable and high quality products critical to fire alarm monitoring applications. u blox’s latest technology, in particular the 3G cellular module LISA-U200 and the LTE cellular module TOBY-L280, which supports Band 28, were the right choices for us”, explains Phil Harman, General Manager of Romteck Australia.

One of the main customers to benefit from the collaboration between Romteck and u-blox was Airservices Australia, an Australian Commonwealth corporation providing air navigation, rescue, and fire-fighting services to the aviation industry. Reinforcing their ongoing commitment to an impressive safety record, in 2011 Airservices upgraded their fire monitoring services across every major Australian airport to a centrally monitored facility using Romteck equipment with u-blox’s LISA-U200 inside.