Several years of hard work by the City of Cape Town has resulted in a digital terrestrial trunking radio (Tetra) system that pulls all the city`s public safety services together on a single, high-speed, secure communications network.
The deputy mayor, Belinda Walker, placed the system into context as part of Cape Town`s "Smart City" project, and part of the integration of the seven municipalities into one.
"It will improve services to all Cape Town citizens," she says, adding: "We`re the first city in Africa to install this network, and are very proud that Cape Town will be the benchmark for future projects."
Cape Town`s Tetra system is one of only 30 operational networks worldwide, though the system is popular in Europe, Africa and Asia, with the number of network contracts globally approaching 100.
Eike B"ar, corporate VP at Motorola, which with its implementation partner Altech supplied both the network infrastructure and handsets, lists among the benefits of the system high-speed voice and data capabilities, encryption that limits eavesdropping and safer operation in high-risk situations.
"It will enhance the safety not only of residents, but of emergency personnel themselves," adds Hugh McCluskey, group executive of manufacturing at Altech.
Among the challenges were obtaining the rights to 19 sites as network base station hubs, as well as lobbying for and securing a common frequency band for emergency services under the communications regulator`s Sabre spectrum rationalisation project.
Under Sabre, emergency services are required to migrate to a consolidated, more efficient band of 410MHz to 430MHz by December 2002. To date, Cape Town is the only city to have met the deadline, and is the only local government to have been issued with a licence for this spectrum.
"We used to have a host of different spectrum allocations," said Carl Schneider, the city`s technical director and Tetra project leader, at the formal handover event in Cape Town yesterday. "We face a mountainous region, and many of the frequencies simply couldn`t go through mountains."
Schneider said emergency services, the planned metropolitan police force, municipal services, NGOs and voluntary organisations such as the mountain rescue squad will all benefit from the system. It will also have patch links to the SAPS`s older analogue radio system.
Those involved with the Tetra project say it will slash the costs and inefficiencies associated with cellular phones, which have become a de facto replacement for old analogue systems that didn`t inter-operate.
"Cellphones are status symbols," said Schneider, "and are not oriented towards public safety. They`re limited to one-to-one communication, are slow at call setup, and expensive to run."
The old analogue radio system also relied only on voice protocol, with the result that priority messages often had to take a back seat to more mundane communication occurring on the channel - another reason why cellphones were used.
Tetra, by contrast, allows the network control centre to allocate users to groups and channels on the fly, and to prioritise urgent communication.
B"ar says the need for accountability to citizens, and the squeeze on public budgets, drives projects such as this one. The cost of the network is estimated at R55 million, and handsets will set the city back a further R50 million. However, cost savings on cellular telephony and the ability to do more with fewer officers will lead to quick payback, according to B"ar.
However, a city official estimates the breakeven point will occur in five to eight years, but notes that the existing communications crisis situation simply had to be solved. He adds that the other benefits - and each life saved as a result of more rapid and coordinated emergency response - will justify the investment much sooner than this.
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