Published Tuesday, August 10, 1999

New megabucks police radio system on the way

Conrad deFiebre / Star Tribune

Construction is underway on a state-of-the-art $150 million police radio system designed to eventually link all jurisdictions in the Twin Cities area, officials announced Monday.

Currently, most cities and counties have their own communications systems that often can't contact each other. A single metropolitan system has been envisioned by planners for a decade, but high costs and disagreements among the area's 212 government units have slowed progress.

Even now, the system will take at least two more years to begin operation with only five participants: Hennepin County, Minneapolis, the Metropolitan Council, the State Patrol and the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

Those entities are plunking down $65 million for the nation's first digital "trunked" public safety radio system, capable of handling 2,400 conversations at once.

Other cities and counties are expected to buy in within the next eight years as their own radio gear wears out, said David McCauley, chairman of the Metropolitan Radio Board, which planned the system.

Monday's announcement coincided with the start of the annual meeting of the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials International at the Minneapolis Convention Center.

The association led development of a system-design standard called Project 25 that was adopted by the Radio Board, despite continuing controversy over its cost and domination by a single manufacturer, Motorola.

Critics say Project 25, replete with computer, microwave and fiber-optics technology related to cellular telephones, is slower and much more expensive than a European police communications standard called Tetra, which is used around the world except for North America.

"The state of Minnesota could have possibly built a statewide Tetra radio system and a new Twins stadium for the same price as a Project 25 trunked solution," Mark Hoppe, a St. Paul radio engineering consultant, wrote in the current issue of the trade journal Radio Resource Magazine. "In addition, virtually all Minnesota public safety agencies would have been able to afford the Tetra solution, rather than just a few large agencies, providing true interoperability for all Minnesota."

Individual Tetra radio units cost $700 to $1,500, Hoppe said, compared with $2,200 to $3,800 for Project 25 units. With a full planned deployment of 25,000 radio units in the Twin Cities system, the cost difference could be $50 million or more.

At least six companies produce Tetra radios and infrastructure, Hoppe said. Only Chicago-based Motorola makes most Project 25 equipment, although rival E.F. Johnson of Waseca, Minn., is negotiating to provide some of the Twin Cities system.

McCauley said the Radio Board ruled out Tetra because of "a big technical problem" -- it operates at frequencies not available for police communications in the United States. In an interview, Hoppe said that's not so, and that many Tetra systems use the same 800 megahertz band reserved for the Twin Cities.

The Twin Cities system will use 37 transmission towers to cover nine counties: Anoka, Carver, Chisago, Dakota, Hennepin, Isanti, Ramsey, Scott and Washington. It is designed to link not only police, but also emergency medical services, transit buses, snowplow trucks, Highway Helpers and other public services.

Because the system is software-driven, it can be continually upgraded over time, Met Council Chairman Ted Mondale said. "We're headed off to the future being smarter and brighter than other regions," he added.

In a news release, Gov. Jesse Ventura said the system "makes good operational and economic sense." Mondale said it will save its users up to 80 percent of the cost of replacing their separate communications systems.

"It's got to start somewhere," said Hennepin County Sheriff Pat McGowan. "This is definitely the right thing to do."

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