Police Told To Send Text Messages Because It Is Too Expensive To Speak On Their Radios

[interestrateripoff]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1329538/Police-told-send-text-messages-expensive-speak-radios.html

Police officers are being ordered to send texts rather than speak on their radios because of the sums charged by the firm that owns the police communications network.

While chief constables face unprecedented cutbacks, the company that operates the system on which all the emergency services communicate has seen a massive rise in profits. Last year Airwave Solutions’ profit margin outstripped even that of mobile-phone giant Vodafone.

Airwave’s pre-tax profit was £170 million, a 26 per cent increase on the previous 12 months. It represents an eye-watering return of 45 per cent on the company’s £380 million turnover.

The company’s charges are said to be putting a severe strain on police budgets. Officers in one rural force have been told that a penalty charge of up to £2 a second is imposed as soon as the number of calls they make goes over a pre-arranged limit.

According to Dorset Police Federation chairman Clive Chamberlain, the punitive levy has led to a series of cost-cutting measures. ‘Airwave is a very expensive system which was forced upon the police service by the Government,’ he said.

‘It was imperative to have a secure communications system. But it has come at a very high price. The advice we’re being given from the top is to send texts as much as possible because it’s going to cost a lot less money.

‘There have been a series of briefings at which a senior officer has said it costs Dorset £2 a second whenever we go over the limit. We are being told that texting more has the potential to save tens of thousands of pounds because it costs only 4p to send 1,000 texts.’

Dorset Police declined to confirm or deny the £2-a-second figure. A spokesman said: ‘The monthly charges include a fixed price for provision of the service, including a set volume of traffic, together with a variable charge that applies if the force exceeds its set monthly traffic volume.’

Does this company have any ex Police officers working for it?

£2 a second, if that's a true figure what idiot agreed to that sort of penalty. Surely it would be cheaper to issue everyone with a mobile phone and let them use that for communicating with base and just use the radio for emergencies or if the mobile network goes down?

How can you even guess what traffic is normal in a month and then agree a figure?

Nice to see the taxpayer isn't being fleeced again.

[Bloo Loo]

stop punching me while I text.

surely SECURE messages should be sent over a secure channel...

everything else should be open and public...they are public servants after all?

[nuts]

stop punching me while I text.

surely SECURE messages should be sent over a secure channel...

everything else should be open and public...they are public servants after all?

gsm is pretty secure - unless you have pretty sophisticated facilities. The problem that I would have is if personal mobiles were used - I am guessing they are using police issued ones.

[Bloo Loo]

gsm is pretty secure - unless you have pretty sophisticated facilities. The problem that I would have is if personal mobiles were used - I am guessing they are using police issued ones.

yeah, but do they have a contract or is it PAYG?

I mean the messages we used the radio for was....attend a place because something has happened.

occasionally, there would be chases and stuff...but for raids and things, they would be planned before, the teams readied and a signal given....

general chit chat was actively discouraged.

[ken_ichikawa]

yeah, but do they have a contract or is it PAYG?

I mean the messages we used the radio for was....attend a place because something has happened.

occasionally, there would be chases and stuff...but for raids and things, they would be planned before, the teams readied and a signal given....

general chit chat was actively discouraged.

Not always, a few weeks ago they had a roadblock, papier bitten! Kind

They had 14 cops stopping every car/bike and harrassing people. They went over the radio checked my licence and my insurance and road tax. They went back and forth for quite a while. And the had quite detailed info on me from listening to the response back. There was quite a bit of chatter.

[Bloo Loo]

Not always, a few weeks ago they had a roadblock, papier bitten! Kind

They had 14 cops stopping every car/bike and harrassing people. They went over the radio checked my licence and my insurance and road tax. They went back and forth for quite a while. And the had quite detailed info on me from listening to the response back. There was quite a bit of chatter.

Oh yeah, PNC it was called in my say.

On what grounds did they detain you?

[R K]

More private company skimming scamming and scumming off the taxpayer.

Who knew.

[ken_ichikawa]

Oh yeah, PNC it was called in my say.

On what grounds did they detain you?

Not sure, they were hidden behind a corner and a cop jumped out and waived for me to stop so I stopped and he took the opportunity to run a check on if my bike was legit.

A long time ago now I was stopped and the excuse was my bike looked stolen... I was so tempted to ask him how did it look stolen?

A few times in Scotland you have cops just stopping every biker and giving them a safety lecture on wearing the correct gear. A few of the scottish group take the mick and decide to take off all their gear bar their helmet after such a lecture....

[SarahBell]

So who outsourced that then?

[Democorruptcy]

Looking at their site https://www.airwavesolutions.co.uk/

They don't just do Police it is Ambulance, Healthcare, Fire, Home Affairs, Security etc.

So we is going to do the digging to find out if any Labour MPs are connected to Airwave? Any consultancies? Any ex-MPs now employed there?

[Wooden Top]

It's not as if we have great coverage either with airwave. We have to carry our own mobile phones anyway just in case. Force issued mobiles? No chance unless your of a higher rank. On Friday and Saturday nights the airwave is so busy that we have to call for ambulances etc from our own phones as the signal is pants on our radios and control are too busy to tell ambo control. Its an embarrassing situation! We tend to call each other on our own mobiles if we need to speak about something important whereby hearing what is being said could be useful.

[ken_ichikawa]

What was wrong with analogue?

What would prevent airwave or others fabricating 'incidents' when approaching the cap to get the radios used at the higher rate?

probably that people could listen in on scanners. I dunno so many you've got 10 keysof coke and you head a raid is coming you take it and flush it down the bog.

[Wooden Top]

Analogue wasn't secure and now with airwave and gps they can track down our everymove which of course they don't do, allegedly.

[Wahoo]

I wd luv 2 get a lil nasty wiv dat blk cnt lookin 8 me. W/U elp me giv a good kickin?

[Saberu]

You need an app for that!

That would require a level of competence and removing corruption from the equation. I'm sure the annual budget would be 1/3 of what it is now if common sense could be applied.

Just like with that football match example costing 300,000 pounds, either the football stadium should encourage it's fans to not be hooligans or they should punish their fans somehow if people are violent .e.g. put prices up. Would soon alienate the hooligans from their friends.

Going on tricksters idea a little further, encryption keys could be used which are updated on a daily basis automatically so that the signals sent for each type of incident cannot be deciphered. And there's absolutely no reason why these signals can't be sent over the internet via a mobile phone.

In fact current technology now is good enough for mobile phones to be using encrypted VoIP and it would be even cheaper than a normal analogue voice call. Too many vested interests for the necessary changes to occur, just think how much money Telecom companies are making and you will see why this cheaper solution isn't being implemented.

I mean if encrypted VoIP can be done right now, unencrypted VoIP would be a piece of piss.

I'm sure a company like HuaWei would take on such a project for less than a million pounds compared to the 170 million/ year they are currently spending on this sack of sh!t.

[Bloo Loo]

Typical Labour signing up to crap contracts. I have to wonder what the whitehall manderins were thinking.

well, the Chief says he has some radio blackspots now the goverment have changed all the band allocations.

oh dear, no budget...lets PFI it, all off balance sheet and paid for over 30 years.

[tim123]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1329538/Police-told-send-text-messages-expensive-speak-radios.html

Does this company have any ex Police officers working for it?

£2 a second, if that's a true figure what idiot agreed to that sort of penalty. Surely it would be cheaper to issue everyone with a mobile phone and let them use that for communicating with base and just use the radio for emergencies or if the mobile network goes down?

How can you even guess what traffic is normal in a month and then agree a figure?

Nice to see the taxpayer isn't being fleeced again.

If they didn't want to agree to this deal they didn't have to.

The whole rational behind the TETRA network for emergency services was that if the cost of network is paid for up front, or out of monthly fees all "calls are free" within your geographical sector (which in the case of say, an airport, will be only the one base station). And this is indeed how the first customers "bought" their system.

But if later users decided that they didn't like this idea and wanted a "GSM" style, subsidised "handset" model they can't complain in they have to pay for calls.

tim

[tim123]

Do YOU think the security warrants the changes and cost - monetarily and practically? Genuine question.

I don't, but the government certainly did.

[Wooden Top]

As someone has already mentioned, if it was insecure it would be a nightmare for us for many reasons so this is not a good idea however I'm sure it could be done a lot cheaper than it currently is. The handsets are great it's the network capacity we have problems with during the busier times and bigger events (pope visit).

[red11]

Airwave is an overpriced embarassment.

I've heard that reception is rubbish compared to the old system.

Once again the taxpayer gets fleeced.

Anybody with a scanner could listen into the old VHF/UHF radios so security is needed, but not at this price.

[interestrateripoff]

Looking at their site https://www.airwavesolutions.co.uk/

They don't just do Police it is Ambulance, Healthcare, Fire, Home Affairs, Security etc.

So we is going to do the digging to find out if any Labour MPs are connected to Airwave? Any consultancies? Any ex-MPs now employed there?

https://www.airwavesolutions.co.uk/about-us/airwave-group-board/

Airwave Group Board

Board of Directors

Leonard Peter Shore MEIF2 (Non-Executive Chairman)

Martin Stephen William Stanley MEIF2 (Director)

Marc Michel Perusat MEIF2 (Director)

Daniel Karl Fetter CPPIB (Director)

Alain Carrier CPPIB (Director)

Andreas Köttering CPPIB (Director)

Sir Stephen Wall (Independent Non-Executive Director)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Wall

Don't know if this is the same Stephen Wall, if it is he's been a top official in the Civil Service.

[Mikesev]

Ultimately, Airwave is owned by Macquarie.