A political member at the Department of Home Affairs says the TETRA emergency services radio system must be replaced or it will become obsolete.
Chris Thomas MHK was speaking to iomtoday.co.im after {http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/setback-for-tetra-upgrade-proposal-1-6912078|Tynwald refused to rubber stamp the DHA’s proposal to spend almost £5m replacing the system}.
Last week Tynwald voted to delay making a decision on upgrading the emergency communication system, which is used by the island’s emergency services, including police, fire brigade and civil defence.
The system is also used by marshals during the TT, Manx Grand Prix and Classic TT races to communicate with other marshalling sectors as well as race control.
Mr Thomas told iomtoday.co.im the contract to maintain the system would end in 2015 and after that it would be unsupported and from that point on it would become unreliable if this wasn’t addressed.
‘After that date, should any fault occur there would be no guarantee that a repair could be effected,’ he said.
‘This is not acceptable in terms of critical emergency services communications. Our island needs secure and reliable all-island communcations for the emergency services.’
The current system is in two parts comprising firstly, the TETRA radio system, which is supplied by Motorola providing communication hand sets for the emergency services. Changes to the system will involve replacing the transmitting and receiving equipment and the associated aerials and cables at each ofthe 23 radio sites. However no changes will be needed to any of the masts which support the aerials.
Secondly, Mr Thomas said, there was the microwave bearer network, which was supplied by Aviat Networks. This connects the TETRA radio sites and the network management equipment.
Changes to the microwave bearer network will involve decommissioning the equipment and dishes at 20 of the radio sites. This is then to be replaced with a ground based network provided by Manx Telecom.
Mr Thomas said both contracts, to maintain the hardware and the microwave network would expire next year and neither could be renewed because the system was now obsolete and it may not be possible to rectify any malfunction.
‘This is not acceptable in terms of a critical emergency services communications. Our island needs secure and reliable communications for the emergency services,’ he said, adding the two systems depended on each other so had to be replaced as a whole, rather than in parts.
The expenditure provoked lively debate in Tynwald with many MHKs saying no convincing case had been made to justify that level of exenditure.
Home Affairs Minister Juan Watterson told members the system was now 11 years old and had handled 15 million calls over the years.
‘The proposal is to replace it with the latest generation system but the hand sets will be retained and reused,’ he said.
He said they had bargained hard and had secured the new system at a £1 million saving and they had guaranteed support for the new system for the next 15 years.
{http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/4-9m-plan-to-replace-emergency-services-communications-system-1-6887690|Click here to read a past story about that.}
Onchan MHK Peter Karran (Lib Van) proposed referring the matter to a committee to report next April but instead it was voted to put the matter back to the November Tynwald, ahead of which Mr Watterson said his department would provide a more detailed justification for the proposal.
Mr Karran said: ‘This proposal does not add any extra services. It gives the impression that government has been taken in by the salesmen. The reality is that it’s not needed for another 10 years. We are talking about a lot of money and we need to step back.’
Ramsey MHK Leonard Singer, who seconded Mr Karran’s motion, asked: ‘What can’t be done now that could be done before? The minister did not present one case in favour of its replacement.’
Douglas East MHK Brenda Cannell said the system seemed to have cost around £1 million per year.
{http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/emergency-services-radio-company-goes-into-administration-1-1775985|Back in 2002 the installation of TETRA hit problems. Click here to read our story of 12 years ago.}