“Unleashed Performance” Reading Half Marathon 2021 made a grand return on November 7^th after nearly a two-year break due to the pandemic. To keep the event staff connected with instant group calls and ensure a smooth and safe event, Foresolutions, a business mobile solution specialist and the communications partner of the half marathon, worked with Caltta’s partner JustCom and deployed Caltta’s latest eChat Push-to-talk over Cellular (PoC) system, including e360 radios, cloud platform, and dispatching console.

More than 6,000 runners’ participance made the Reading Half Marathon 2021 one of the major events in the running calendar. The Reading Half Marathon, first held in 1983, is a half marathon road running event held on the streets of the English town of Reading. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the race was cancelled in 2020; and the 2021 race was postponed from April to November. 

To ensure the smooth running of this event, Caltta and JustCom started on-site tests a few days before the event and adjusted the entire eChat system for optimum use. Multiple emergency plans had been put into place, including experts for full-day online support on the event day, though actually not a single request for troubleshooting was initiated later. 

“Reading Half Marathon 2021 is another successful event running our eChat system. Our partners are proud of what we have achieved together,” said Leo Li, Sales Director of Caltta Overseas. 

The event organiser and Foresolutions commented that the eChat system had provided great coverage and the solution worked very efficiently. The staff running the four dispatching consoles said the communications system for this year was the best they had ever used and the dispatching console was very intuitive and user-friendly.

Foresolutions planned to deploy eChat again for the 2022 Reading Half Marathon in April next year.