Police reassess 10111 centre

By Leon Engelbrecht, ITWeb senior writer

Johannesburg, 08 Apr 2008

Police are belatedly looking at business continuity at the R600 million Midrand 10111 contact centre, after a data line fault left the centre unable to take calls from the public or assist officers in the field for six hours.

A line fault at the centre on Friday night meant it was unable to take calls from the public until about midnight. The centre was also unable to provide detectives at crime scenes assistance such as verifying licence plate numbers of suspected stolen cars, or asking for crime scene experts to attend a murder scene.

Instead, police were told to contact Vodacom`s 112 emergency call centre for help.

The Star reports today that this incident was not the first time the police`s digital network had crashed. Police officers told the newspaper the system goes down at least two or three times a month.

Gauteng police spokesman superintendent Lungelo Dlamini says the data line fault meant the centre could not access the police`s central mainframe.

"An investigation is being done together with other stakeholders to look at other alternatives, including the use of microwave links should the present system fail," Dlamini adds.

"A draft proposal for a disaster recovery plan is also being discussed with all other role-players."

Important initiative

President Thabo Mbeki opened the Midrand contact centre in October. "This is an important initiative in our fight against crime," Mbeki said at the time. "It ushers in a new era in crime-fighting across the nation."

The centre replaced six previous facilities that, between them, handled 4.6 million calls a year. The facilities were incapable of interoperating and had become outdated. The new centre was expected to become operational during July 2007, but several delays plagued the launch.

Mbeki said two more centres, one in the Eastern Cape and another in KwaZulu-Natal, would "open shortly". He added that the entire country will eventually be covered by such centres.

The centre is built around two adjoining rooms - one the control room for all police deployments in Gauteng and the other the terminal for all 10111 emergency calls made to the police in Gauteng.

In addition to supplying and integrating the technology for these two wings, Altech also supplied a R506 million Motorola-based terrestrial trunked radio network to manage police deployments and give patrols an enhanced capability to communicate.