JimK wrote:JAFO wrote:
By switching across to the GRN, the Police will no longer have to pay out on Transmitter Site Leases, Landline cost and major Radio Equipment repairs / replacements, as that would be the responsibility of the NSW GRN, so even with the cost of affiliating all those Police Radios to the GRN, the police were still looking at possible savings of around $2M per month.
1/2 the costs = 1/2 the coverage too.
JimK,
That may be the case at the moment, but from what I was told the Police will not switch over to the GRN till the GRN Management Authority can guarantee the GRN coverage is the same or better then what the Police Metropolitan PMR Network coverage is.
So if we look at the last 12 months, we have seen some major upgrading of the GRN Network undertaken to expend the GRN Footprint and provide better coverage in know blackspot areas. I know from personal experience that the GRN has better coverage in some areas then the Police Network does, but likewise there are areas where the Police coverage is better then the GRN.
The idea behind the GRN was for all Government Services to be on the One Whole of Government Radio Network and all those Government Services Radio Communications Budgets to be pooled into the one Radio System – the GRN.
Yes I know the Government being a Government will not allocate the same level of funds of 15 different Government Departments into the one Radio Network Budget, but even if they allocated the equivalent funds of 7 Departments into GRN Funding, that’s still 6 times more then what 1 Government Department would have received.
I know just from my experience over the past 10 years as an end user, the GRN Network has improved greatly in both reliability and coverage. So if the Coverage does meet or exceed that of the NSW Police Radio Network, then the end users will be provided with a better network then what we have now, and hopefully the GRN will continue to expend even more in the future with more available funding and need for its expansion.
