30/11/2004 - O2 expect to win Tetra Contract
Extracts taken from Electronics Weekly - article written by Melanie Reynolds
O2 Airwave is confident of winning the Firelink contract to provide a
national communications network for the fire and rescue services. O2 is
rolling-out the national police comms network which uses Tetra and already has
85,000 users. It is competing for the Firelink contract against EADS Cogent
which is offering a Tetrapol network. However, there is resistance to the
emergency services deploying networks using different technologies:
"The emergency services need to talk to each other
in times of crisis, so it would be less than optimal if fire and ambulance
were out of the loop with the police, anything else would not make sense."
Jeppe Jepsen,
Director of International business relations, Motorola.
The police currently use Mobitex for any data requirements and APD Communications
believes there is no reason data cannot stay on a separate system:
"In the UK there's no excuse for ending up with
voice on different networks - it'd be unforgivable, but it doesn't preclude
a dual data solution."
Duncan Gerrard,
Senior Consultant, APD Communications.
Powerwatch does not approve of the TETRA system and strongly supports Terapol
as a biologically safer system.
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