"Paul Robson" wrote in
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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.
They have sold off frequencies we have been using for years with no
major problems. Do not blame your local police force for buying into
duff technology, they had little choice in the matter. And for those of
you who might read the items below and say 'purely teething problems',
then let me say this: We are something like the 38th Force to go live
with Airwave. o2 have had 37 previous installations to make their cock
ups and learn by them. Our Force has also been using Airwave (in a
testing capacity) for well over a year, and live for 6 months in some
areas. NONE of the technical problems raised time and time and time
again have been fixed during any of this.
Be fair ! Why should it be different from any other government project.
You didn't really think it would work did you ???
Hello,
It's crap compared to the old wide area encrypted network I used. Everyone
could hear each other clearly and it didn't break up. It had the occasional
UHF fluttering effect if in a difficult area, but nothing mad. o2-AIRWAVE
was over budget and you should see the contract!
The data side of it doesn't work, so no sending in reports. The pictures do
not work, so no pictures of suspects, the fingerprint scanning doesn't work
and people are told not to use it to speak privately or for "phone" because
it slows the system down.
It was a great idea on paper, but put it in the hands of people with a
degree (worthless piece of paper) with NO practical experience or common
sense and it falls apart.
All o2-Airwave is good for is voice comms, but only in the areas contracted
and agreed will have coverage. In a way planning permission was obtained
almost by force to provide comms in some areas as the project was already
agreed to. So it was another way of getting unrelated base stations and
aerials onto the same sites.
In Merseyside and Cheshire the system is worse than normal radios.