SAPS Tetra installation 'going well'

By Leon Engelbrecht, ITWeb senior writer

Johannesburg, 25 May 2007

The installation of a R506 million digital terrestrial trunked radio (Tetra) communications network, for the SA Police Service in Gauteng, "is progressing very well", says spokesman superintendent Lazarus Tlomatsana.

He adds that "of the 64 sites scheduled for installation, about 80% have been completed".

"It is anticipated the system will take official effect by the end of October," Tlomatsana says.

Altech subsidiary Alcom Systems was awarded the contract in 2004. An Alcom spokesman has underlined Tlomatsana's comments, saying the project is nearing completion and is expected to meet its year-end deadline.

"A number of sites have been completed and we are still awaiting environmental approval for some of the sites."

The network, once operational, will support the consolidation of the police's 10111 call centres into a centralised location. This consolidation is already under way as part of a separate police command-and-control project. The new site, in Midrand, is scheduled to go online in July.

Alcom won the contract following a successful roll-out of a similar network for the City of Cape Town in 2001, that cost R75 million. The Cape metropole uses Tetra as the communications backbone for its city police and emergency services. The city network enables 6 500 users to assist more than 3.1 million inhabitants, living in an area of more than 4 419 square kilometres.

The Gauteng police contract involves the supply, delivery, installation, commissioning and testing of a complete Tetra network system for the province. At the time of winning the tender, Alcom said it was the biggest radio communications contract ever awarded on the African continent.

Alcom stated the Tetra network would benefit the police, as 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.

The Tetra narrow-band network runs on the 4.9GHz band that has been set aside for government use. 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.

Last year, T-Systems mooted a Tetra network for the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

Tetra complies with a European Telecommunications Standards Institute standard, the first version published in 1995.