Astrid TETRA network for police and emergency services in Belgium still has 75 blind spots

The Astrid TETRA network, intended for police and emergency services in Belgium, still has 75 blind spots. Even indoors, in police stations and fire stations, there is a coverage problem.

The board of directors in the annual report has warned that "the consequences of the drastic savings can be dramatic and that users are most at risk." Writes the newspaper "De Tijd" today.

Marc De Buyser, CEO of Astrid confirms that there is a need for a centralized data center, more spare parts in stock, better response times and especially the radio network urgently needs to be replaced to better support mobile data. Early last year, an audit, but when the government fell. Apparently it's not a priority for resigning Interior Minister Annemie Turtelboom. It appeared recently in May when the fire at the Kalmthout heath coverage problems were that serious.

"We are now working on a strategic plan for the next ten years," says Marc De Buyser. "This plan will be presented at the end of September to the board." He hopes, that before the end of this year it is approved by the government. These are major investments because there must deployed a new radio network. Just maintaining the existing 500 towers will cost about 14 million Euro's per year.

The new network should improve capacity and response times and it should especially increase the bandwidth for mobile data. This is now only 4 kbit /s, just enough for short messages however for photos, videos or large files, this is clearly inadequate.

At this moment, Astrid tests GEO-location services where police and fire fighters can be located. It was launched in June last year, but only just now rolled out.

The ASTRID network includes 62,500 radios for 75,000 users, in particular police (28,800) and fire (25,600). Some utilities like Eandis and Fluxys also make use of the TETRA network.

Source: www.datanews.be