Resolution of the Council of Ministers no. 26/2002, of 5 of February

Published in D.R. number 30 (Series I-B) of 5 February 2002

Presidência do Conselho de Ministros (Presidency of the Council of Ministers)

Resolution

(This is not an official translation of the law)

In Portugal, several entities perform tasks in the areas of emergency and security, under the tutelage of different ministries. Communications are a basic instrument for an efficient exercise of their current activity. The present situation of the different networks of communications, emergency and security, give rise to problems which are posed by the life of the equipment used, the analogue technology that supports it and the fragmentation/absence of the main functions integration.

Attentive to the situation, the Government, through Resolution of the Council of Ministers n. º 88/99 of 22 June, decided to implement a mobile, single and national network, based on digital trunking technology, for the shared use of entities performing tasks in the areas of emergency and security. The existence of a single network makes it possible to meet with efficiency the operational requisites of security and emergency services, namely with regard to levels of communication quality, reliability and security, while at the same time being an appropriate instrument aimed at ensuring a more rationalized management of financial resources and an optimal use of the radio-electric spectrum.

The mentioned Resolution lays down a provision whereby the responsibility for the co-ordination of the process leading to the network establishment and supply falls upon the Ministry of Internal Administration (MAI). In compliance with the Ministerial Order n. º 3645/2001 of 26 January, of the Secretary of State Assistant to the Minister of Internal Administration, a working group was set up, whose task it would be to conduct studies and put proposals in perspective regarding the physical, logic and institutional architecture support to the network.

In the performance of its duties, the working group granted a hearing to all potential users and requested the potential partners, interested in continuing the project, to characterize the activities, supplies and solutions already examined. The study carried out led to the characterization of a physical infrastructure and its morphology, to the operation requirements of the main applications and to the equation of six alternative scenarios for its implementation over time and space.

Likewise, having in mind the nature of the assets to be protected (emergency and security), the tasks and activities to be complied with and the technologies to be used, three institutional solutions were conceived as a framework for the project, and within these solutions, eight variations were considered as to organization and functioning. This approach also carries with it all foreign experiences and solutions engaged in similar projects, some of them visited, as well as information and knowledge received through several conferences and seminaries.

The characterized solutions start from the analysis of networks currently existing and adopt for its operation the user-payer and partnership principles. Moreover, it is believed that these solutions, for their known and expected impact, shall provide substantive operational advantages, resulting from restructuring, organizing and modernizing circuits and procedures.

The ICP, national communications authority, has integrated the working group and its present and future role in this project has been put into due perspective.

A decision of the Schengen Group - recognized and published by the European Union subsequently to the drawing up of Resolution of the Council of Ministers n. º 88/89 of 22 July - which allowed the Tetrapol technology to be applied to emergency and security networks, in the 380-400 MHz bands, brought up a matter of legal constraint, resulting from potential technological limitations derived from adhering to a literal adoption of that resolution. These constraints were confirmed by the legal opinions requested by the Ministry of Internal Administration, whereby a standard is declared to be an assessment instrument that may not restrain competition.

In view of these legal constraints, of the development of digital trunking technologies in every foreign experience analyzed, of the possible competitive advantages in the stage of the infrastructure takeover and of the latest acquisitions in Europe, it was considered that, side by side with the TETRA technology, other equivalent technologies should be weighted, for purposes of support to the security and emergency network. The use of currently existing support infrastructures by the emergency and security network, wherever possible, was also taken into consideration.

Finally, the settling of a name for the project was deemed important, and likewise the attachment of a concept to the name, and thus was adopted the expression SIRESP - Sistema Integrado das Redes de Emergência e Segurança de Portugal (Integrated System for Portugal's Security and Emergency Networks), as a single, national and shared system, which is aimed to ensure the fulfillment of the communications needs of the emergency and security forces and services, allowing intercommunication and interoperability among the several forces and services and, in case of an emergency, enabling the centralization of leadership and coordination.

Therefore, pursuant to paragraph g) of article 199 of the Constitution and having regard to the question of the urgency of the guideline definition which may allow the implementation of the National Network for Emergency and Security in due course, the Government hereby resolves:

1 - To determine the name SIRESP - Sistema Integrado das Redes de Emergência e Segurança de Portugal (Integrated System for Portugal's Security and Emergency Networks) for the project and future national network for emergency and security.

2 - To define the SIRESP - Integrated System for Portugal's Security and Emergency Networks as a single system, based on only one national and shared infrastructure, which shall ensure the fulfillment of the communication needs of the emergency and security forces and services, allowing intercommunication and interoperability among the several forces and services and, in case of an emergency, enabling the centralization of leadership and coordination.

3 - To establish that the SIRESP - Integrated System for Portugal's Security and Emergency Networks shall be shared by the following entities, without prejudice to others that may come to be identified: the humanitarian associations for voluntary fire fighters, the Portuguese Red Cross, the Directorate-General for the Forests, the Directorate-General for Prison Services, the Army, the Portuguese Air Force, the National Republican Guard, the Institute for Nature Preservation, the Inspectorate-General for Economic Activities, the National Institute for Medical Emergency,  the National Institute for Forensic Medicine, the Navy, bodies of the national maritime authority, the Judicial Police, the Public Safety Police, the Foreigners and Border Service, the Security Information Service, the National Fire-Fighters Service and the National Civil Protection Service.

4 - To determine, as to the implementation of the SIRESP - Integrated System for Portugal's Security and Emergency Networks, a guaranteed access to the frequency bands engaged to emergency and security communications, reserved for this purpose by ICP, national communications authority, to the entities mentioned in the preceding paragraph which so request it and which cumulatively make use of the digital trunking technology and undertake to transfer the management and use of stations and equipment, under the terms to be agreed between the parties, to the entity which shall come to hold the single infrastructure of the SIRESP - Integrated System for Portugal's Security and Emergency Networks.

5 - To adopt the principle of the user-payer for the operation and usage of the system.

6 - To consider that, side by side with the TETRA digital trunking technology, other equivalent technologies shall be weighted, for purposes of support to the security and emergency network.

7 - To establish that the entity which shall come to hold the single infrastructure of the SIRESP - Integrated System for Portugal's Security and Emergency Networks, shall agree together with the entities mentioned in paragraph 3, during the implementation stage of the system, the usage terms of the means held which may be integrated as support to the SIRESP - Integrated System for Portugal's Security and Emergency Networks, having regard to the essential cost-effectiveness of existing telecommunication infrastructures, technically compatible with the SIRESP - Integrated System for Portugal's Security and Emergency Networks.

8 - To establish that all the basic technological infrastructure of the SIRESP - Integrated System for Portugal's Security and Emergency Networks shall be installed in two stages and over five years. Accordingly, there will be: 1st stage - to be performed in 2003 and 2004 - for the installment of base stations and of the corresponding basic infrastructure in the mainland districts of Lisbon, Oporto, Braga, Coimbra, Aveiro, Leiria and Faro; 2nd stage - to be performed in 2005, 2006 and 2007 - for the installment, in compliance with the implementation scenario to be adopted, of the rest of the base stations and foreseen infrastructure in the remaining 11 mainland districts. Alongside with it, and in articulation with the Regional Governments of the Autonomous Regions of the Azores and Madeira, a specific plan shall be designed for the installment of base stations and corresponding basic infrastructure in the Autonomous Regions of the Azores and Madeira.

9 - To determine that the requirements of the radioelectric coverage demanded by SIRESP - Integrated System for Portugal's Security and Emergency Networks shall enable connections starting from 1W portable equipments in 95% of the locations and 95% of the time (urban areas), 95% of the locations and 95% of the time (suburban areas and main highways and roads), 90% of the locations and 95% of the time (rural areas), penetration into buildings at 80% (urban areas) and 50% (rural areas). In rural areas, the existence of premises that justify a higher signal penetration shall be taken into account. Connections with 10W car radios in suburban and rural areas and main roads shall also be enabled. The redundancy of elements essential to the network shall ensure a technical availability of about 99%.

10 - To establish that, given the types of radio operations involved (full-duplex, semi-duplex and direct mode), the SIRESP - Integrated System for Portugal's Security and Emergency Networks shall enjoy redundancy in the fixed connections (between commutators) and partial redundancy regarding base stations, as well as allowing encrypted communication over all the network, ensuring confidentiality, complying with European directives and international agreements, guaranteeing the interoperability of the system and of the terminals and complying with the communications basic functional requirements.

11 - To determine that two different entities shall be set up, in order to ensure the operation of the SIRESP - Integrated System for Portugal's Security and Emergency Networks: on the one hand, a council of users, of an exclusively public nature, integrating representatives of all the users of the network and presided by an element appointed by the Ministry of Internal Administration, who shall also preside the operational security entity to be established by the Government, and on the other hand a business entity, based on a public-private partnership, complying with the user/payer principle and pursuing management rules that aim for self-financing.

12 - To provide the Ministry of Internal Administration, in articulation with the ICP, national communications authority, with the responsibility for the coordination of the whole process leading to the implementation of the SIRESP - Integrated System for Portugal's Security and Emergency Networks, as well as for the technological migration of existing networks, suggesting and accomplishing, pursuant to this Resolution and having regard to the study already carried out, the measures deemed necessary for its achievement.

13 - To repeal the Resolution of the Council of Ministers n. º 88/89 of 22 July.

The Presidency of the Council of Ministers, 10 January 2002.

The Prime-Minister, António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres.