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From The Times
June 17, 2004

£2.9bn police radio link ineffective

By Helen Nugent

A £2.9 BILLION police radio network designed to allow the emergency services to stay in touch is not working properly, a three-month investigation has concluded.

Airwave is the most expensive police radio network in the world, yet officers, wireless software designers and radio technicians say that the system provides only limited access to police computer systems and has patchy coverage in many regions.

Some forces have been reduced to carrying their old analogue radios and mobile phones in addition to the new digital handsets.

Others face multimillion-pound bills to upgrade their systems and build new radio masts.

A three-month investigation by Computing, a specialist magazine, has discovered that data transmission speeds — which are crucial for accessing pictures and fingerprints — fall far short of the speed promised at the start of the project in 1999.

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