South African Radio Upgraded

The Gauteng province (S. Africa) police held the grand opening of its new Radio Communication Centre for handling citizen telephone calls and radio coordination of field units, consolidating six sites into one location. The centre’s dispatchers field calls to the 10111 emergency number, and use a digital trunked radio system to communicate with police officers. The $92.2 million price tag included the new building and radio system, which replaced a patch-work of analog radio systems. The phone and radio system are linked, so that officers can use the radio as a cellular phone, and callers can talk directly to officers in the field. The six former centres were handling 4.6 million telephone calls a year. The province is one of the country’s smallest, but it’s highly urbanized, with 8.8 million residents over 6,500 square-miles.