The TETRA mast on top of Haverfordwest Police Station.

The Government was slammed by the European Union immediately it announced it was to begin a tendering process for the nationwide contract without ever looking into alternative technologies despite other systems being available which offered the same benefits and services at a much reduced cost.

Despite severe criticism from the EU, the Government continued with its TETRA-only approach and called for the first working TETRA system to be in place with Greater Manchester Police in time for the city’s 2002 Commonwealth Games.

Central Government handed the Home Office, along with the Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO), the job of overseeing the project and managing the initial TETRA scheme.

Although the trial proved relatively successful, with the authorities claiming that the only drawback was that reception on the equipment was so good that private discussions between officers could be heard some distances away, the project was littered with difficulties from the outset.

The first problem came about when Dolphin Telecom, the police's preferred supplier of the TETRA infrastructure went into receivership in 2001. Despite causing initial headaches for the Home Office, Dolphin’s demise proved no bad thing as the company’s system was believed to have been incompatible with other systems already in use around Europe.

The Home Office began to look for alternatives to Dolphin and found that British Telecom had also developed its own TETRA system under the name of Airwave.

In fact, Airwave proved to be the only alternative to Dolphin which maintained the Government’s earlier choice of TETRA technology. Airwave allowed the Home Office to continue down the same path on which it had already spent millions upon millions of pounds in preparation for the fast-approaching Manchester Games.

When BT separated its landline and mobile phone businesses Airwave became part of mmO2.

Airwave was initially awarded the £1.5 billion contract to roll-out TETRA across the entire UK.

However then the Government’s own Public Accounts Committee expressed concerns over the mmO2 agreement and backed a report from the National Audit Office which said the police were paying far too much for the system.

The PAC also expressed concern that the £1.5 billion included a 17% profit margin for the company even though it faced no competition for the service. Even more questions were raised when it was discovered that the company had taken £170 million in ‘alleged risk cover’ and a further £70 million ‘contingency charge’.

At present the TETRA system has cost £2.9 billion, almost twice its original estimate.

Critics of the scheme have repeatedly called for an explanation as to why the alternative TETRAPOL system, which is already in place in some European countries, was never considered, despite claims that it would have cost only 10% of the TETRA system and was much safer to use because of the transmission frequencies involved.