Extracts from a Met publicity handout... from around 1995..
The current MPS personal radio system is made up of more than 100 separate VHF (Very High Frequency) systems which support divisional, specialist and public order operational requirements. These systems are old and in need of replacement. Divisions currently suffer from poor radio coverage. co-channel interference and congestion. Problems have been particularly acute where divisional amalgamations have been made. DoT has made many efforts to address these problems but because the VHF systems are running at the limit of their effectiveness, very few permanent improvements have been possible.
WHAT IS METRADIO?
Metradio is the name of the MPS project to re-equip the MPS with a new generation of personal radios. This project is managed by the Department of Technology (DoT). The first task was to discover exactly what was required from a modern police radio system, so an extensive survey of users took place.
Then in 1991, 500 police officers took part in a trunked radio system trial. The trial addressed operational and engineering objectives. It highlighted issues such as the importance of training and the integration of the Command and Control system. This allowed the DoT to determine how best to meet users' requirements. In 1994, after a full European Community tendering exercise, a contract worth more than £30 million was let to Motorola Ltd.
Under the contract, Motorola will work with the DoT to supply the MPS with a completely new UHF (Ultra High Frequency) trunked radio system which takes full advantage of the most recent developments in radio technology. (...)
The National Radio Project
In addition to the Metradio project, the DoT is heavily involved in planning for a national police radio system. Preliminary studies during the Metradio project clearly showed that most forces current radio systems do not meet user needs. There are shortfalls in terms of communications quality, coverage, freedom from interference, flexibility, freedom from congestion at busy times and vulnerability to eavesdropping through the use of scanners.
The Home Office is managing a project to replace all existing police radio systems. The Public Safety Radio Communication Project (PSRCP) is more commonly known as the Radio Project. The main aim of the Radio Project is to meet the complex and demanding needs of the police service. However other emergency services, particularly the fire service, may take advantage of the new system.
The Radio Project has considered many options and issues including frequency bands and interoperability between police and other emergency services. With the costs of the whole project expected to be between £800M and £1 billion, the question of finance has also been debated. Present plans envisage a five-year rollout commencing in late 1998. Because of the major investment by the MPS in Metradio it has been agreed that the MPS transfer will be deferred until the year 2002 at the earliest.
-- Mike Burgess : University of Life... Slough, Berkshire, UK : If it ain't broke : don't fix it !
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Only question, why did the Met. waste 30 million on a plain speech, obsolete system when TETRA was all but in the shops!
This actually goes back five years or more, at which time TETRA was probably still being developed[1] and certainly not ready to be installed on a large scale[2]. The previous Met system was on VHF with some parts traceable back to the 1960s, was becoming very unreliable, occupying a section of band now wanted for other purposes, had poor coverage in many places, etc, etc.
Basically, at the time the decision was made, the Motorola system was the best option. It wasn't then regarded as "obsolete" (and I'm not sure that it is now) and it *could* have encryption addded later AIUI. It took slightly longer to introduce than was initially intended (what major project doesn't?) but waiting another few years in the hopes that something else came along wasn't an option.
Since TETRA/PSRCP will take a while anyway the Met has agreed to go to the back of the queue, by which time the current system will have been in full use for several years and possibly reaching the point where certain elements will be due for replacement/upgrade anyway. Nothing lasts for ever.
Other areas have also invested considerable amounts in recent years rather than waiting for TETRA: in Kent PR systems dating from the PocketFone era (later using Burndept 470s and then 600s) and just covering the town areas have been replaced with wide-area UHF networks in the last few years. All of this will be replaced again in a few years time (though it's quite possible that some of the infrastructure can be re-used).
Dan
[1] I've not checked the history of this...
[2] ...but I'm pretty sure it wasn't "off the shelf" back then. We're talking 18,000 PRs (personal radios/portable radios) and all the associated gubbins.
--
Dan Glover (dan@dangl.demon.co.uk) Today's Excuse: TCP/IP UDP alarm threshold is set too low.
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Let's put some detail in here.
PSRCP - the Public Safety Radio Communications Project - is what Jack Straw announced HMG would be making a contribution of GBP50m towards. BUT the price for the full system will be GBP1500m - yes 1.5 billion - so what was the point of making a speech about a 50m contribution, other than to identify that the Project *is* going ahead (there was some doubt) and to catch headlines for the party conference?
The PSRCP system originally had two contenders: what became Quadrant, is BT, Motorola, Nokia, and TRW, and a second group (the name of which escapes me) which was lead by Racal and supported by Simoco and Securicor amongst others. Racal however got cold feet on the basis that even if PSRCP went ahead there was nothing to force the emergency services to buy access and equipment after the system had been built, so they pulled out and the second consortium collapsed leaving the single tender to Quadrant. To put it in perspective the evaluation stage of the project alone was worth over GBP40m, so 50m from Herr Straw is nothing.
The PSRCP system is basically Tetra but with a few other extras added on, like broadcast and talkthrough (in the simplest terms.) It will, for instance, give the PC on the beat access to PNC. However other users, such as the Fire Service, don't need such a sophisticated capability - their primary need is to talk - so a simpler radio would suit them fine.
Paradoxically that will be more expensive because of the added development costs. Encryption, apart from the system being digital and thus very difficult to decode, is inherent in Tetra. There is also the problems of system availability and access charges.
Some prospective users - the Police in some areas - have been seriously frightened by the 'floated' costs. One police force has been quoted a typical charge of GBP3.5m PER ANNUM. Their existing kit (equipment), apart from maintenance, costs nothing, and even if they replaced it at a typical cost of about GBP2m, they could write that off over, say, five years. With PSRCP the charge is there in perpetuity, and can rise. Remember, Quadrant will install and maintain a national system and enter into Service Level Agreements with users.
As for availability, apart from down time [with the best will in the World no-one could go for an SLA at better than 99.98%, which across the country and perhaps 1500 radio sites amounts to outage of around 2500 hours or over 100 days per year] what happens when a site fails? In an urban area with several sites and probable overlap one site loss may not be too significant, but what happens when the only site serving a part of a Yorkshire Dale goes legs up? Apart from access difficulties - which may be significant at some times of year - whilst that site is out there will be NO comms for anyone. At the moment the three main emergency services all have their own systems, albeit in may cases on shared sites. The chances of all three failing at once in any one area are relatively small.
Reading the technical press already gives cause for concern about system loading. Take that single site in a Yorkshire Dale, with the site fully working. A sky-jockey flames out and ejects - his jet comes down on a village/town show and flattens 200+ people. The Fire service are paranoid about response times and keeping Control informed of progress: the Police will want to control traffic and rubber-neckers; the Ambulance will want to call for backup and pass pictures of injuries back to A&E for guidance. How quickly does that site become saturated and then who takes priority for what? There is unlikely to be the luxury of cellular in the area.
The PSRCP working group may have allocated priorities, but it only takes one senior police officer to make a call into that saturated site about food and drink for his officers for a lower graded Ambulance call about injuries to be dropped. Add to this that it looks as though Quadrant are now getting concerned about cost recovery such that apart from the peripheral emergency services - Coastguard, Mines Rescue, Mountain Rescue, Cave Rescue, etc coming on board, they are now talking about taking on local councils (they have to clear up after the emergency as well as help during it,) security organisations (even shopping centre security has been mentioned) and anyone else they can think off that might have any form of 'emergency' connection. Personally I find this very worrying.
Lastly someone made a comment about 'throwing money away' - such as the recent Met system. The original plan was supposed to be a trial system in place in Lancs by this time last year, followed by a roll-out starting about now, with the Met being the last to be replaced in about 2007. At the time the Met tendered their system that original date, IIRC, was 2011, so they were quite justified in what they did. The Lancs trial is still not in place - the decision that PSRCP should go ahead *at all* was affirmed when Jack Straw gave his promise of GBP50m towards it - so whatever dates were originally proffered must be at least one year late, and counting............
At the moment PSRCP is being driven by the Police and the Home Office. The Fire Service is very much sitting on the fence but recognises that it may be forced to join whether it wants to or not, the Ambulance are very much running away - they have no money for this sort of on-cost. There is also the inter-service rivalry that worries them: once they have a common radio system that permits intercommunication, why not join the emergency services firstly under one control and then into one service? Logical at least.
David Taylor of Simoco went into print recently and suggested that a better plan would have been to have allowed user-owned shared regional Tetra systems to have been installed now (the costs for one user would probably have been too high, but put two or three together and it becomes viable) and then the Home Office act as an interconnect facilitator. This would have permitted places with systems that are 25+ years old that are falling apart to buy new equipment now but have the intercom facilities appended later, rather than wait for an all-singing all-dancing national system to be built with loads of trinkets that they don't want and/or will never need? After all, how often does an ambulance man in Devon need to talk to a fireman on the Glasgow underground, which is potentially what Quadrant will permit? I think he had a good point.............. Here endeth of my epistle. -- Andrew W. Harrogate, UK woody@tangon.demon.co.uk g1uxp@gb7cym
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