At a ceremony held at GITEX 2010, the Abu Dhabi Police confirmed that Cisco IP telephony solutions, which provide an enhanced infrastructure for the transmission of data, voice and video, will be installed at its headquarters and branch offices throughout the Abu Dhabi emirate.

The police service needed a flexible, scalable and highly secure infrastructure to be able to deploy more services and applications. Ease of communication between all stakeholders (HQ, branches, staff and public) was also a key requirement. Cisco Unified Communications solutions help to improve workforce productivity and lower the cost of operating branch offices by simplifying management and reducing the necessary equipment. The solutions are designed to improve communication with constituents and to meet regulatory compliance requirements.

This IP telephony solution will allow the Abu Dhabi Police service to address the complexities of the workplace where employees are geographically dispersed and information overload is considered normal. The Cisco solutions will help broaden the scope of collaboration within the police service to encompass document and text-based applications such as e-mail and instant messaging, as well as team workspaces and voice and video conferencing in a way that matches each individual's needs.

With IP telephony being the first phase of this deployment, the aim is to consolidate all the police's branch and the headquarters infrastructure in the emirate of Abu Dhabi into a single unified IP telephony system to include voicemail, unified messaging, presence and the Cisco Unified Personal Communicator. This will allow future services to be rolled out more quickly to enhance communications and provide citizen services to the wider community.

Wayne Hull, director and general manager of Cisco, UAE expressed his support for the Abu Dhabi police decision. "As the UAE continues to build a world-class city, Cisco supports the UAE in delivering world-class citizen services. Cisco is helping Abu Dhabi Police to take a holistic approach to achieving a highly secure communications environment by providing the strategies, tools and resources needed. Our technology solutions will enable the Abu Dhabi Police service to improve its information management processes, enhance citizen communications, and increase interorganisational collaboration."