Costs for Airwave to rocket

As BT begins the rollout of its Airwave network for emergency services, known as PSRCP, police forces are signing up to more coverage and services than was anticipated. As a result, the £2.5bn cost of the police Tetra network is set to soar.

As BT begins the rollout of its Airwave network for emergency services, known as PSRCP, police forces are signing up to more coverage and services than was anticipated. As a result, the £2.5bn cost of the police Tetra network is set to soar.

Phil Wadsworth, project director of PSRCP at Motorola, who is in charge of building the infrastructure for Airwave, said: "We are building more base stations than the planned 3000, because the police want greater coverage."

"More kit means the value of the contract goes up - by how much is difficult to estimate without a breakdown of the calculation," he added.

Alan Pitt, chief superintendent at the Police IT Organisation, said that Airwave was value for money, but that it was "hugely more expensive than anything any police force has spent on communication".

Jeff Parris, general manager of BT Quadrant, confirmed that police forces were signing up to more services and contributed this to growing confidence in the network. "We think, but this is speculation, that the police forces reviewed their budget and found that they could afford more services," he said.

The UK government made a sum of £500m available to fund basic Airwave coverage, leaving more money available in the police budget to buy more coverage and functionality if necessary.

Ray Ginman, head of radio engineering, frequency and the communication planning unit at the Home Office, said that the sum was to cover rollout costs for the first three years of the project. However, he did not believe that buying additional functionality would drive up the price. "Tetra is expensive, but not compared to other trunked radio technologies," he said.

Parris added: "Whether the total ends up at £2.5bn, £3bn or even £3.5bn is just a matter of how you calculate. The most important thing is that Airwave provides value for money."