The Quadrant consortium’s lone bid for Great Britain’s public-safety mobile radio license tender is a result of anti-competitive actions by the United Kingdom in violation of European Union rules, claims a rival firm prohibited from competing in the tender process.
Matra Communications-a French telecommunications firm that is a joint venture between Canada’s Northern Telecom Ltd. and the Lagardhre Groupe in France-filed a writ in the United Kingdom’s High Court last month. In it, the company seeks “substantial” damages, claiming the Home Office “committed serious breaches of EU law in its conduct of the procurement process for the Project Definition contract of the (Public Safety Radio Communication Project).”
The PSRCP, valued at $2.5 billion, plans to interconnect Britain’s entire police, fire and ambulance communication systems by 2003. The Police Information Technology Office is responsible for awarding the contract.
Matra claims it was disqualified from bidding on the license because the tender specifications only would accept systems based on a digital trunked radio technology called Trans European Trunked Radio. Tetra, as it is known, was created by Quadrant consortium members Motorola Inc. and Nokia Corp. and is still under trial.
Matra said this condition unfairly excludes companies that do not use the technology, such as itself. Matra has developed a different digital trunked radio system called Tetrapol.
Because the license is publicly contracted, Matra said it believes that limiting specifications to Tetra technology violates both the Treaty of Rome and the EU Public Procurement Directives, which state government contracts must be opened to all companies equally.
“This restrictive technical specification unfairly and wrongfully excluded consideration of competing equivalent technologies,” read a statement made by the company. “Public contracting authorities have a duty to consider equivalent technologies capable of delivering similar standards of service on a fair and equal basis.”
Going further, Matra contends Tetrapol-developed particularly for police and defense communications-is better suited for public-safety use, saying Tetra is too expensive and “underdeveloped.” Tetra has been talked about for years, but has experienced delays getting to market. Currently, however, it is the only technology recognized by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute as a standard for two-way digital trunked radio.
ETSI is considering an application to recognize the Tetrapol technology as well. There now are 20 Tetrapol networks in service or in deployment in 13 countries, seven of which are in Europe. They include the French national police and defense forces, Spain’s police force, police and civil defense forces in Singapore and several public-safety and mass transit organizations in Germany.
“The Matra product seems to be an excellent product,” said Peter Clemons, two-way trunked radio analyst for The Strategis Group in London. It is “a highly specialized product for police services.”
The difference between the Tetra and Tetrapol, he said, is their focus. “Tetra is a wonderful product. We have been looking at it as a public access solution. But Tetrapol does appear to have characteristics (attractive) for police and defense purposes.”
However, to facilitate Pan-European communication, many European regulatory agencies already have decided on Tetra as their standard-much like Global System for Mobile communication dominates there, despite the efforts of Code Division Multiple Access supporters.
“Tetrapol is seen as a proprietary standard and people are worried if they go with Tetrapol, maybe later there will be supply limitations or capacity limitations and network roaming limitations,” Clemons explained. The Strategis Group released a study last year that predicted Tetra would be the dominant standard in Europe in the next five to six years.
