Radio technology has long been a key weapon in the fight between police and crooks. Despite some health concerns, digital syst Tetra, writes Jamie SmythAnalogue radio communication has long been a weapon in the battle betweenpolice and crooks. Now, despite some possible health concerns,digital systems such as Tetra are the latest attempt to foil the gangs,writes Jamie Smyth
When police stormed into a house in Manchester, England, recently and caught burglars red-handed in the middle of a robbery, they were not surprised to see the men using a scanner.
Monitoring police communications using cheap analogue scanners - which cost about €200 - has been standard practice for criminal gangs for years. However, the Manchester burglars hadn't realised that police in their area had recently shifted to a new secure digital communications radio system called Tetra, says Trevor Evans, an inspector with the Greater Manchester Police.
"The officers got a message from the control room while they were on patrol and were able to get to the site and apprehend the robbers, without them having any idea of their movements," he says. "When we were using the old analogue radio system, criminals would monitor the movements of out patrol cars and commit crimes when they were far away from the crime scene."
Later this month, all police forces across England, Wales and Scotland will adopt the same new secure digital Tetra system, which also gives officers on the beat a lot of extra functionality.
"Now all police forces will be using the same radio system and communicate much better with each other, whereas before they used different frequency bands UHF and VHF," says Evans. "We can also use data services now to tap into databases back in the control room, and we have a panic button on the radio to call for assistance in an emergency."
Digital radio systems also offer much better quality sound and features such as "dynamic grouping", which enable all emergency services at an accident to use a single digital channel to co-ordinate the rescue operation.
Back in Ireland, access to a secure digital radio system for the Garda has become a top priority for the Garda Representative Association (GRA), which is concerned about the safety of its members.
"The current analogue radio system used by the Garda is 20 years old and is held together by paper clips and rubber bands," says Dermot O'Donnell, GRA president. "It is unreliable, insecure and past its sell-by date."
The existing analogue system has back holes in coverage - for example, the Phoenix park - where it doesn't work properly. It is also monitored by crime gangs before they undertake big jobs such as the robbery of armoured cars.
O'Donnell says the situation has become so bad with the current radio system that Garda are now using their own mobiles for official police business. The GRA has been lobbying the Government to purchase a secure digital system for the past five years. But the huge cost of a digital system have prevented this up until now.
It cost the British exchequer £2.9 billion (€4.23 billion) to roll out Tetra to cover England, Scotland and Wales, and agree an outsourcing contact with the firm O2. The system is also available for use by other emergency services such as the fire and ambulance service.
The cost to the Exchequer of rolling out a national network in the Republic is now estimated at anything up to €300 million, says Ronan Tynan of the Dublin Wireless Cluster, which last week hosted the International Tetra Association (ITA) - a body keen to win an upcoming Irish tender.
Firms that manufacture and supply Tetra equipment, such as Nokia and Motorola, also briefed officials and the private sector on the merits of the Tetra system.
"There are more than 70 countries that use Tetra now, mostly in Europe and Asia," says Phil Godfrey, chairman of the ITA. "In some of these countries, Governments outsource the management of Tetra systems to private sector firms while, in others, they buy and operate them themselves."
The Department of Justice, the Garda and the Department of Finance, which are all co-ordinating the Government's strategy to set up a digital radio system, have not yet specified what type of contract will be awarded, when it will be awarded or even what technology system is preferred by the State.
Firms promoting Tetra will face competition from a rival technology known as Tetrapol and other modified GSM systems. Tetrapol, which is supported by the firm EADS, was developed before Tetra, and there are currently 60 networks deployed across 28 countries.
Tetrapol has many of the same functions as Tetra such as encryption and integrated data and voice mobile handsets. It also enables users of its handsets to make standard GSM mobile calls from its latest generation of handsets, a feature also offered by Tetra.
Godfrey says Tetra has more functionality then its rivals and cites the stronger encryption that is available on Tetra, compared to modified GSM technology. He says the introduction of faster data speeds - similar to 3G speeds of 300 kilobytes per second - also gives Tetra the edge over rivals.
But the Tetra system has bitter opponents in Britain, where campaigners have co-ordinated a vocal national strategy to undermine the new mobile technology.
The Tetrawatch website, which can be viewed at www.tetrawatch.net, details a host of health concerns, which it claims are caused by the radio signals used by the Tetra system.
It says the signals, which pulse electromagnetic radiation at a frequency of 17.6Hz, can interfere with normal brain activity. It also highlights that Tetra pulses at a higher frequency than normal GSM mobile technologies and there has been very little scientific research into the safety of specific Tetra systems up to now.
The Tetrapol system also uses a continuous wave transmission that does not pulse, says the site.
There are also fears that the stronger Tetra signals can interfere with pacemakers and other medical equipment.
Interestingly, Tetra is also thought to be responsible for disabling thousands of cars by overpowering the central locking system and immobilising their engines. Some car alarms and immobilisers use frequencies close to that of Tetra.
The motoring organisations AA and the RAC were called to 200,000 incidents linked to phone-mast interference. And they have advised drivers to avoid parking near aerials and masts, change the batteries in their electronic car keys regularly, and only use them when they are close to their cars.
"We are aware of the difficulties with many emerging technologies that use microwaves," says the GRA's O'Donnell, who plans to raise the issue of the proposed new digital radio system with the Minister for Justice next week.
"Even though no link has been proven between it and health problems, nothing short of the highest specification of safety tests can be tolerated."
The British police force has initiated a long-term health study of officers over the next 15 years but the results won't be known for many years. However, the ITA says there is absolutely no evidence of any health problems emerging from the use of Tetra systems.
Meanwhile, a Government tender for the multimillion euro digital radio system is expected to be issued over the next few months.
Industry observers expect it will be made available to all emergency services, rather than simply the Garda. But with a recent upsurge in activity from crime gangs in Dublin, the Garda will hope that the radio tender issues sooner rather than later.
Useful websites
www.tetramou.com
(International Tetra Association)
www.tetrawatch.net
(anti-tetra campaigners site)
www.tetrapol.com
(tetrapol organisation)
www.airwave.com
(a subsidiary of O2 which operates the tetra network in Britain).
