ESN
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untakenname

Original Poster:

5,352 posts

221 months

Tuesday 11th February 2020
quotequote all
Surprised that the farce over the switch over for emergency services from Tetra to 4G hasn't been picked up on by the mainstream press, £3 billion over budget (now estimated at £9.3 billion) and not likely to be implemented till 2024 at the earliest.

https://www.cbronline.com/news/emergency-services-...

Driving outside of the M25 4G signal is still very much hit and miss so using it for critical communications with no fallback seems very foolhardy.

Would have been cheaper and simpler to roll out new handsets that use Tetra for voice but an additional 4G modem built into the handset for data.

Drumroll

4,517 posts

149 months

Tuesday 11th February 2020
quotequote all
untakenname said:
Surprised that the farce over the switch over for emergency services from Tetra to 4G hasn't been picked up on by the mainstream press, £3 billion over budget (now estimated at £9.3 billion) and not likely to be implemented till 2024 at the earliest.

https://www.cbronline.com/news/emergency-services-...

Driving outside of the M25 4G signal is still very much hit and miss so using it for critical communications with no fallback seems very foolhardy.

Would have been cheaper and simpler to roll out new handsets that use Tetra for voice but an additional 4G modem built into the handset for data.
The whole system in its current form is ridiculous. For example last weekend with high winds etc., some masts went down, added to that more people wanting to use their phones to keep in touch with loved ones etc, so easy to overload the system.

Look at the Manchester bombing, thousands of people wanting to contact their loved ones (in a small geographical area) whilst all the emergency services want to use the same data source. If like the current system it can be shut down with only specific phones working, it would still struggle and think of the additional panic to parents when they couldn't get through to their loved ones.

Tetra has it's disadvantages but it at least works.

Jakg

4,040 posts

197 months

Tuesday 11th February 2020
quotequote all
Drumroll said:
The whole system in its current form is ridiculous. For example last weekend with high winds etc., some masts went down, added to that more people wanting to use their phones to keep in touch with loved ones etc, so easy to overload the system.

Look at the Manchester bombing, thousands of people wanting to contact their loved ones (in a small geographical area) whilst all the emergency services want to use the same data source. If like the current system it can be shut down with only specific phones working, it would still struggle and think of the additional panic to parents when they couldn't get through to their loved ones.

Tetra has it's disadvantages but it at least works.
This already exists in the regular mobile networks, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACCOLC

Drumroll

4,517 posts

149 months

Tuesday 11th February 2020
quotequote all
Jakg said:
Drumroll said:
The whole system in its current form is ridiculous. For example last weekend with high winds etc., some masts went down, added to that more people wanting to use their phones to keep in touch with loved ones etc, so easy to overload the system.

Look at the Manchester bombing, thousands of people wanting to contact their loved ones (in a small geographical area) whilst all the emergency services want to use the same data source. If like the current system it can be shut down with only specific phones working, it would still struggle and think of the additional panic to parents when they couldn't get through to their loved ones.

Tetra has it's disadvantages but it at least works.
This already exists in the regular mobile networks, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACCOLC

Did I not say that?

surveyor

18,690 posts

213 months

Tuesday 11th February 2020
quotequote all
Government really should stop messing with Telecoms.

In Dec 18 the government brought legislation in which the Mobile Operators claim will slash their rents by circa 98%. Who'd have thought it. Their landlords are not amused, don't want them, and they are having to test legislation every step of the way. Oh and they are not winning all the steps either...

All while trying to roll out 5G, and ESN (which means that EE need more sites in some more rural areas).