Cape Town, Motorola make the city safer

In 2000, the City commissioned a Motorola Solutions Dimetra IP digital TETRA radio system providing coverage over the Cape Metropolitan Area (CMA). One of three municipalities in South Africa that operates its own TETRA network, it is the largest, serving 11,000 of the City's public safety, security and utility services. The system also provides reliable communication to 2,500 external users from surrounding municipalities, including the emergency medical services of the provincial government.

The city has upgraded the radio communications infrastructure through radio distributor Altech Alcom Matomo to the latest version of the Motorola Solutions TETRA system, Dimetra IP 8.2, to provide increased resilience.

The system is set up so that all the public safety agencies' communications - across a range of radio groups and interconnected with the telephone network - remain secure and private. Encryption ensures those with police radio scanners cannot listen in on conversations, while real-time Global Positioning System (GPS) location tracking and mapping enables the command centre to monitor users, such as police officers, and instantly dispatch support to their exact location.