Case Study:
Government Met Office

Whatever the Weather - Every day, the Met Office delivers tailored weather related services to a range of businesses ranging from the media, to airports and airlines and local government.

To many businesses, this information is essential for the smooth running of their operations, so it is vital not only that the data is delivered, but in a variety of formats to suit the user.

The Met Office uses a series of delivery networks to transmit forecasts, and to receive incoming data. One such network is provided by long term supplier, Wirefast, whose multi-channel messaging platform allows data to be sent and received in a range of required formats including SMS, fax, email, voicemail and telex. An added benefit is the 24x7 delivery support provided by Wirefast, which gives the Met Office assurance that their services have been delivered.

The versatility of the Wirefast network enables the Met Office to deliver content in the best format for the customer. This even includes delivery direct to the editorial systems of TV, Radio and Newspapers, most notably BBC Radio 4's Shipping Forecast using Wirefast's Newslink service.

Newslink is a secure message transmission service designed specifically for broadcasters and publishers. More details are available at www.newslink.co.uk

"The versatility of the Wirefast service is important to the Met Office, as one customer may require telex communication, another may require fax and a third may have adopted an SMS-based system", explained the Met Office. "It is just as easy for us to fulfil the service for each customer irrespective of technology but it's important we also continue to innovate and offer new ways to send weather and environmental data to our customers".

The quality of service Wirefast provide for the delivery of the Met Office's severe weather warnings is vital, given the chain of events that unfold on receipt of the information. In the case of Local Government customers, advance frost and snow warnings allows local services to be allocated to accident prevention and updates provided to local media, so that in turn, the population can be informed of the expected severe conditions.

Whichever communication protocol is in use, Wirefast offers a full message audit trail so that the Met Office can monitor each and every message ensuring it has been transmitted and received. In rare cases where a message does not arrive at its destination, the Wirefast service initiates human intervention to guarantee critical information always reaches the people who need to see it.

"We set a great deal of trust by the reliability of the Wirefast service," explained the Met Office. "It's a system which is not only highly robust in itself, but in the rare event any problem does occur, it is well designed to bring in a human element to quickly solve any issues."