New UK Radio System Facing 1 Year Delay

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marcp90

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An ambitious project to replace the bespoke radio network used by *hundreds of thousands of police, *paramedics and fire crews with a cheaper system based on normal *mobile signals faces a new delay of up*to a year, *according to Westminster sources.

https://trib.al/YcJWuz8
 

citylink_uk

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The current network has been running since 2004 and is operated by a private company which has profited from the system.

There are very real concerns over indoor and rural coverage with the move from 390MHz TETRA to 800/1800 LTE with a very minimal increase in sites.

Police forces are unlikely to abandon the current system until coverage is equal to what they have now. The network operator will likely have to install and provision new sites delaying the switch off of TETRA and adding to to overall costs.

The whole situation is incredibly complex and has been wasting so much money. Motorola now own the existing TETRA network whilst also hold major contracts with the new LTE system.

Further to this, Vodaphone operate one of the microwave networks that link the TETRA sites and they want to close down their involvement so any over run will incur huge costs as they will be effectively holding the users to ransom.

I my opinion the government should have bought back the current network from the private operator years ago to reduce costs. The TETRA system is still very modern and has excellent coverage (>98% of UK roads),

The government could have waited for the LTE standard to mature and allow private operators to build out 800MHz LTE sites before committing.

It's already been confirmed that the LTE system being implemented by Motorola will not include the latest feature releases in the LTE standard.

Our government has history of incompetence with technology contracts and it seems there's no sign of this trend ending!
 

INDY72

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"Our government has history of incompetence with technology contracts and it seems there's no sign of this trend ending"

Which is also due to wanting to make sure everything is top secret, secret squirrel, double 0, secret from everyone but 2 flying monkey dudes. Which is how that lovely TETRA nightmare started over there.

And your NOT ALONE with government incompetence... We have miles of highway to H*** paved with good intentions of clueless greedy nutballs we keep electing to run things.
 

2wayfreq

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They are going from already small Tetra handsets to flimsy "Cell Phone" radios? Unbelievable!! Sorry, but IMHO they need REAL police radios like Motorola APX, not cracker box phone sets. I would also say go 390Mhz P25 Trunking, but I know that will sadly never happen.
 

citylink_uk

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They are going from already small Tetra handsets to flimsy "Cell Phone" radios? Unbelievable!! Sorry, but IMHO they need REAL police radios like Motorola APX, not cracker box phone sets. I would also say go 390Mhz P25 Trunking, but I know that will sadly never happen.

I believe the new handsets will be Motorola LEX L10s which, to be fair to Motorola are built to public safety specs. I'm just skeptical that the coverage won't be able to match the current TETRA system.

When you have a network that has the base stations to run 1 or 2 watt radios, there is no real need to haul massive bricks like the APX around.
 

jbella

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Most Fire Brigades still use UHF simplex for fireground use.

The funniest line is the last, quoting the Home Office: “won’t take any risks with public safety and there will be no gap in the emergency services”.

Slashing funding to public safety services isn't a risk, then eh?
 

SCPD

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"Our government has history of incompetence with technology contracts and it seems there's no sign of this trend ending"

Which is also due to wanting to make sure everything is top secret, secret squirrel, double 0, secret from everyone but 2 flying monkey dudes. Which is how that lovely TETRA nightmare started over there.

And your NOT ALONE with government incompetence... We have miles of highway to H*** paved with good intentions of clueless greedy nutballs we keep electing to run things.

I am waiting for LTE line of radios to hit, pre evolution is here in some form, it'll be interesting in the USA when the full blown LTE 2 ways hit, along with more cell 2 ways from Motorola. Will make the APX all band look like a joke and price make you choke up yesterdays chicken. I'm waiting to see those contracts with the even higher $$$$.
 

phillmobile

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Over on this side of the pond there seems to be a culture of just using mobiles its darn hard work getting people to understand what a 2 way is and this new system is basically the mobile phone network the citizens use, oh and there is no priority for emergency services so if a site is congested with teenagers streaming a incident then the same cell site will be overloaded for the police, crazy but true because they want it all to be mobile phones.
 
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