Government Contract Awarded (Police Digital Radio)
British Telecommunications PLC
8 March 2000
BT WINS ITS BIGGEST EVER GOVERNMENT CONTRACT
TO SET UP POLICE DIGITAL RADIO SERVICE
BT today announced that it has been awarded a major £2.5 billion
Government contract to provide a national digital radio service
for Britain's police forces.
The Public Safety Radio Communications Project (PSRCP),
awarded to BT, aims to provide all police forces in England,
Wales and Scotland with fully digital, state-of-the-art secure
mobile radio communication services. It is BT's biggest ever
contract with the Government.
The service will offer users ready access to the police
national computer and other computerised databases. It will
permit the transmission of photographs and graphics and provide
greatly improved voice communications with key safety features
for officers. Individual police forces will have access to a very
high level of coverage designed to meet their individual needs.
The new service will offer the police a universal crime-
fighting tool, which will help them to make most efficient use of
police resources and at the same time help them to provide a
safer environment for every citizen. It will also be available
for take-up by other public safety organisations.
Under the contract, BT will be the service provider and
prime contractor for the new service in England, Wales and
Scotland, which is expected to generate around £2.5 billion at
today's prices - excluding inflation - in the next 19 years.
It represents the culmination of four years' work by the
Quadrant consortium headed by BT.
Sir Iain Vallance, chairman of BT, said: 'This project will
deliver the most modern communications service anywhere in the
world for emergency services and the wider public safety
community.
'Together with the Home Office, the Police Information
Technology Organisation (PITO), and representatives of the
emergency services, BT and its partners in Quadrant have worked
extremely hard to make the vision of a national digital radio
service a reality.
'This initiative will deliver improved efficiency and
greater co-operation between the nation's emergency service teams
and the wider public safety community, brought about by a modern,
efficient communications service.'
This new service will be based on the Terrestrial Trunked Radio
(TETRA) digital standard.
Its roll-out across Britain is being phased, with the police
forces and other public safety organisations in most need of a
replacement communications system being catered for first.
Completion of the roll-out is expected by 2005.
Work is already well under way on a pilot, which will be run
in conjunction with Lancashire Police. Lancashire Fire and
Rescue, British Transport Police and Lancashire Ambulance Trust
will also take part.
The first wave of officers in Lancashire Police will start
using the new service later this year and the pilot will be used as a
test-bed to learn and gain experience before the national roll-out to
other emergency services.
The award of the service contract follows significant
milestones already achieved by the Quadrant team. These include customer
workshops, regular meetings with all forces, engineering and user trials,
the submission of the project blueprint and the establishment of
the pilot in Lancashire.
As part of the new agreement, BT has let substantial
contracts to its business partners. The two primary partners are
Motorola for the radio infrastructure and TRW Inc. for the
systems integration, both members of the original Quadrant
consortium.
BT has also established a dedicated team to take this
initiative forward. The customer facing part of the team,
responsible for sales, marketing and solutions will be called BT
Quadrant, while the tremendous task of building and operating the
network will fall to BT Airwave. They will also look for
opportunities to take the experience from the PSRCS and use it in
other markets, including overseas.
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