Botswana Police Service has introduced a P24 million radio communication system to improve service delivery. The Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) is expected to improve police efficiency in communication and performance.

 The Acting Director of Transport and Telecommunication Assistant Commissioner Gobolotswe Dimeku, said the TETRA will address the Botswana Police Service’s communication challenge that troubled the organization in recent years.

Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) is a set of standards developed by the European Telecommunications Standardisation Institute (ETSI) that describes a common mobile radio communication infrastructure throughout Europe. This infrastructure is targeted primarily at the mobile radio needs of public safety group such as police departments and other enterprises that provide voice and data communication services.

Mr Dimeku said TETRA relies on digital trunking or tracking, saying the product comes with built-in encryption features to ensure the privacy and confidentiality of sensitive data and voice communications. He said these products are also designed with ability to transfer data at faster rates than seen before in mobile communication and it takes its features from several different technologies, mobile radio, digital cellular telephone, paging and wireless data.

Mr Dimeku said the system has improved radio communication between police helicopters and the ground operatives resulting in quick response time. He said it has made it easier for ground operatives to follow suspects as they get guidance from the helicopters by continuously communicating with them showing them the location of the suspects from an aerial view.

Currently 25 police stations are benefiting from this system. Efforts are currently underway to rollout the system to cover all police stations nationally and this will take time due to financial constraints.

The microwave network is the one used to connect different repeater sites of the new radio system and this allows the officers at the Northern part of the country to directly communicate to another in the Southern part by portable radio (walkie-talkie). Mr Dimeku however said that some components in the microwave network need to be upgraded.