Spark will launch a new private paging service for the NZ Fire Service, once the current public network closes next year.

Last July Spark announced its decision to close the public paging network at the end of June 2017.

According to a statement, the agreement between the New Zealand Fire Service, and the National Rural Fire Authority, involves a significant upgrade of the existing paging infrastructure to form a new private paging service, which will be made available to other emergency services, health boards and customers for whom paging is also business-critical.

The New Zealand Fire Service operates across the length of New Zealand including many remote rural locations that do not have wide spread reliable mobile coverage.

“The paging service is considered business-critical to ensure Fire Service staff are quickly on-scene at emergencies and working swiftly to save lives,” the organisation says.

According to Spark, the telco has been communicating with its other paging customers about the proposed shut down since July 2015, and will continue to work closely with existing customers over the next six months.