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CI Times Weekly | Current Issue 439|23 March 2012

Technology upgrade enhances Police communication

After a three month trial, an official handover of the new communications gear from the New Zealand Police force to the Cook Island Police force took place in the courtyard of the Cook Islands Police building on Friday the 9th of March 2012.
Deputy Commissioner of NZ Police Viv Rickard made the formal handover to CI Police Commissioner Maara Tetava and the DPM Hon Tom Marsters. Also attending were NZ High Commissioner John Carter and Telecom CI CEO Jules Maher and Telecom CI officials.
Until recently the Police have only had a small number of radios in some of their vehicles and a couple of hand -helds which only had worked in town, due to a huge lack of channel coverage. There were also radio blind spots around the island and foul weather impacted even further on the quality of the channels between each radio.
Local Police had to rely mostly on mobile phones to speak to one another, but now thanks to the support from New Zealand Aid as part of a Programme of Assistance partnership between the Ministry of Foreign affairs, New Zealand Police and the Cook Island Police Telecom Cook Islands who assisted with the installation and some of the costs involved with setting up the equipment, the Cook Island Police now have new communication gear to use.
Police now have radios in all of their vehicle fleets and an added 20 portable radios to assist
Officers on foot patrol and provide communication for motorcycle units.
Late last year Telecom Cook Islands begun to upgrade the repeater sited on the mountainous terrain of Te Kou. New base equipment was installed at a number of locations. Four channels have been opened up for police and other government agencies to use. One channel is dedicated solely to police emergencies, another is to be used jointly by the police, fire, and ambulance for day to day incidents and operations.
A third channel will be used by Te Aponga Uira, corrections service and other agencies, which leaves a fourth channel to be used as back up. The capacity of the radio channels has also increased.
Commissioner Tetava said. “I am very happy with the new system; it is working well and the beauty of it is tht all of the emergency services can talk to each other. I can also sleep better at night knowing that my people have the radios. They do an extremely difficult job in order to help others and this new equipment makes their work environment safer.”

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