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South African Police Services, South Africa

The South African Police Services (SAPS) is the national police force and the principal law-enforcement agency of the Republic of South Africa. The SAPS has more than 190,000 staff and is responsible for many public services throughout the country, including crime prevention, response services, intelligence, security and detective services.

South African Police Services, South Africa

"Given that South Africa will be hosting the 2010 Soccer World Cup, the SAPS radio engineers scrutinized not only the performance of the products offered, but the capabilities of the companies backing the product offering. Notwithstanding aggressive competition from all major radio communications product manufacturers, Tait and Emcom Africa came out on top with the best product offering, twice."

George SpencerEmcom

Situation

The SAPS was looking for a radio communications provider to serve the needs of the country's police force with instant and dependable communications for a two-year supply contract.

The SAPS officers were accustomed to using the T2020 mobile radios, but sought to update their technology to a more technically advanced mobile radio.

Response

Having been successful in winning the previous two-year contract with the SAPS, Tait and its South African dealer Emcom had a good idea of the requirements and were able to respond with a new and innovative product offering.

Tait custom-designed the TM8124 mobile radio to suit the exact needs of the SAPS. The radio maintains the current T2020 control head that the SAPS officers are accustomed to using, whilst introducing the TM8115 radio body and keypad, making the product the right fit for the SAPS' requirements.

Tait Communications Vice President of Sales Engineering, Jan Noordhof, states: "Even though Tait is no longer building the T2020 model, it was important to create the right fit for the customer. By combining the familiar T2020 mobile radio with Tait's newer TM8115, the custom-built TM8124 mobile radio offers users increased functionality without disrupting the look and feel of their current radio."

This latest contract will see the TM8124 and the T5020 portable used exclusively; the SAPS will use only Tait terminals for their nationwide analog systems.

Outcomes

The new contract positioned both Tait and Emcom as major players in providing a secure environment at the 2010 Soccer World Cup, which was hosted by South Africa.

Tait mobile and portable radios have provided dependable communications in various units of the SAPS, having been extensively used within the force for over a decade.

The radios are well known by the SAPS radio technical support units and have been successfully deployed in mission-critical applications across the country.

George Spencer from Emcom notes that it is significantly more difficult to win these types of contracts for two years running: "We beat the competition last time with the T2020 and T5020. This time around, some innovative thinking allowed us to create a product the customer could not refuse. It is a significant achievement to win two, two-year supply contracts back-to-back".

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