"Concerned Officer" wrote in message
oups.com...
Paul Robson wrote:
On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 02:43:47 -0700, Concerned Officer wrote:

Let me be quite clear about a few things first of all. It is the
government's fault that police forces have had to switch to
Airwave.
snip
You didn't really think it would work did you ???

Considering they spent £2.3bn (and counting!) on the system, I would
have hoped it to work slightly better than the quality I can get out of
two tin cans and a piece of string. Sad, really.
Cheers,
PC A.N. Other.

and all because the Gov didn't want to share a network.

For at least the last 5 years, Scandinavian countries use GSM Pro,
which has secure Push To Talk closed network groups on the existing
900MHz GSM phone networks, using cheap rugged GSM Pro PTT
phones like the Ericsson R250, which now sell for under 100 quid.

Used with Sims that have high network priority allocated to them,
so if a cell is full, it kicks off lower priority users to force a connection.

and as we all know UK 900MHz GSM coverage is extensive and reliable.

The cost of the whole upgrade to GSM Pro instead of Tetra airwave
could have been measured in thousands rather than billions of pounds.
So of course the Blairites had to reinvent the wheel and make it of gold,
why not, they aren't paying for it

Steve Terry