Police plan new ICT investments

By Leon Engelbrecht, ITWeb senior writer

Johannesburg, 09 Apr 2008

The police plan at least two large ICT infrastructure investments this year - a new 10111 centre for the Eastern Cape province and a terrestrial trunked radio (Tetra) network for the Cape metropole.

A tender opportunity to build a 10111 centre in the Eastern Cape, similar to the R600 million facility, in Midrand, for Gauteng, closed on 18 December. Proposals are now being evaluated.

A source involved in the process says, due to the complexity of the tenders, it may be "three to four months" before a winner is announced.

Tetra network engineer senior superintendent Richard Irish said last October, at the opening of the Gauteng centre, that seven companies had by then expressed an interest in the Eastern Cape project.

The next province in line to receive such a centre is KwaZulu-Natal. Police expect all provinces to have a single 10111 centre by 2015.

Meanwhile, police are also considering a Tetra network for the Cape metropole to replace the analogue APCO16 system. "If all goes well and funding can be secured, we may advertise this year," the source says.

The Gauteng Tetra system, part of that province's Altech-done 10111 implementation, cost about R500 million. In addition to the contact centre, in Midrand, and Motorola hand- and vehicle-mounted Tetra radios, the Gauteng system includes 67 hilltop masts fitted with radio frequency repeaters.

Irish previously said Tetra gave police dispatchers the ability to track every officer carrying a radio handset and radio-fitted vehicle in real-time. This allows them to speedily dispatch the nearest law enforcer to a reported incident.

The Gauteng centre is staffed by 112 police officers and civilians per 12-hour shift. They employ geospatial programming combined with Tetra tracking and a variety of databases to determine the scene of an incident, caller identity and the location of the nearest police officer.