Motorola Solutions wins $40m WA Gov't two-way radio contract

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 06 December 2011 04:23

IT Industry - Deals

Motorola Solutions has been awarded a $40 million, five-year contract to expand an APCO 25 digital radio network it supplied to the WA Police in 2005 and to make it available to Fire and Corrective Services under a shared infrastructure arrangement.

According to Motorola Solutions "The Community Safety Network project is fully funded under Western Australia's Royalties for Regions program and will enable key state-based public safety agencies - the Western Australia Police (WAPOL), Department of Corrective Services (DCS) and Fire and Emergency Services Authority (FESA) - to communicate across a single integrated and multi-jurisdictional network for the first time."

Gary Starr, managing director, Motorola Solutions Australia and New Zealand, told ExchangeDaily. "We started rolling out the Police network in 2005, but that covered only metro areas. We extended it to other major population areas north and south a couple of years ago.

"This latest contract will extend it state wide and will add coverage of FESA and DCS facilities so they can interoperate and leverage Police's investment in this network. FESA and DCS presently have largely analogue networks and Police have signed MoUs with FESA and DCS to enable them to use the network."

When complete the network will cover 20,000 square kilometres surrounding Perth's metropolitan area plus an additional 25,000 square kilometres throughout regional areas including the Pilbara, Mid West, Goldfields-Esperance and South West regions of Western Australia - servicing approximately 95 percent of Western Australia's population.

Motorola will supply 3250 user terminals - for those police presently in areas served by analogue networks, and for FESA and DCS users.

Motorola will install APCO25 base stations at some 200 sites: trunk radio systems at 20 major sites and conventional systems at a further 180. The core network in Perth wil also be upgraded. "They will be able to manage the network centrally from Perth, remotely test and remotely upload software," Starr said. "That represents a huge saving."