Following the successful roll-out of a digital terrestrial trunked radio TETRA communications network by the Cape Town municipality in 2001, the South African Police Service (SAPS) in Gauteng is awaiting the completion of a similar system in 2007.
The City of Cape Town, the first in Africa to adopt TETRA technology for municipal use, is reported to have seen great financial benefits since running all its services, including emergency and police, on the network.
The city's improved integrated radio communication system enables its 6 500 users to service the more than 3.1 million inhabitants in Cape Town and its surrounds. The system covers an area of more than 4 419 square kilometres.
Motorola, together with Alcom Systems, was awarded the contract in August 2000 to install Cape Town public safety's ETSI TETRA system, at a cost of R75 million. This gave the municipality instant access in emergency situations and inter-service communications between departments and units.
The network provides the ability for the city to consolidate its call centre with the system.
Since the success of the Cape Town TETRA network, the Gauteng SAPS last year awarded Alcom Systems a tender for the supply, delivery, installation, commissioning and testing of a complete TETRA network system for the SAPS.
While this network is dedicated solely for SAPS utilisation, other users such as emergency services and local government, can be added to the system at a later stage.
At the time of winning the tender, Alcom said it was the biggest radio communications contract ever awarded on the African continent, valued at R506 million.
Key benefits for the SAPS in a TETRA network is the fact that it is significantly more secure than any commercial network, which relies on mutual authentication and encryption for voice transmission. In addition, TETRA base stations are designed not to be affected by electrical blackouts, which means emergency communications remain up and running during a disaster situation.
Also, the TETRA narrow-band network runs on the 4.9GHz band that has been set aside for government use, and is not restricted by the lack of commercial bandwidth availability in SA. In line with the TETRA standard, the channel spacing of carriers is 25KHz, and in this bandwidth, the maximum attainable data transmission speed is 28.8Kbps unprotected.
There are no known plans by national government to roll-out TETRA networks on a countrywide basis, but it is understood that the cities of Durban and East London are mulling plans to introduce TETRA systems for emergency communications.
NOTE: This story has been amended at the request of the original interview subject.
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