Greece is spending €44.2 million to overhaul the communications network used by its fire service and civil-protection authorities, but maintaining the system after its initial warranty could add almost €20 million to the bill.
Greek telecommunications group OTE has won the contract to design, supply and install a nationwide secure digital radio network for the Hellenic Fire Service and the country’s national crisis-management mechanism.
The agreement, signed three days ago with Information Society, the state-owned company that implements major public-sector technology projects, is worth €35.665 million before value-added tax, or €44.225 million including VAT.
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The project’s potential cost, however, doesn't end there.
The contract provides for three years of warranty services at no additional charge following final acceptance of the system. After that, the government has the option to activate a separate four-year maintenance agreement under a service-level agreement, or SLA.
That maintenance is priced at approximately €4.01 million a year before VAT, or €4.97 million including VAT. If the option is exercised for the full four years, it would cost €16.03 million before VAT and €19.88 million including VAT.
The combined cost of the initial contract and maintenance could therefore reach about €64.1 million including VAT.
Put another way, four years of maintenance would add an amount equivalent to almost 45% of the original €44.2 million contract.
The contracting authority isn't obligated to exercise the option. Still, the scale of the potential maintenance bill is significant for a system that will become part of Greece’s critical emergency infrastructure and will connect thousands of firefighters, vehicles and command centers across the country.
OTE will build what the contract describes as a secure digital integrated trunked-radio communications system with nationwide coverage. It will support voice and data communications, with priority given to voice, as well as individual and group calls.
The architecture will connect the General Secretariat for Civil Protection, the Fire Service data center in Moschato near Athens, 13 regional operations centers and local fire stations.
Firefighters will also be able to communicate directly between terminals and establish local relay networks, allowing communications to continue in areas where conventional network coverage is limited or unavailable—an important capability during wildfires and other emergencies in remote or mountainous areas.
The procurement is heavily weighted toward hardware. Of the €35.665 million contract value before VAT, €23.279 million, or about 65%, is allocated to equipment. Software accounts for €3.107 million, services for €807,000 and another €8.399 million for other expenses.
At the center of the network will be 260 fixed DMR Tier III base stations costing roughly €7.3 million. The project also includes 4,800 portable terminals worth €3.691 million and 4,500 vehicle-mounted transceivers costing €3.965 million.
Another 1,500 hybrid DMR/4G-LTE terminals will cost €2.412 million, while 200 ATEX-certified devices are budgeted at €254,000. The Fire Service will also receive 200 mobile base stations and repeaters, worth €3.478 million, to extend radio coverage during operations.
Motorola Solutions is the main technology supplier, providing its MOTOTRBO and Capacity Max platform as well as R7, R7Ex, ION and DM4000e terminals. Hewlett Packard Enterprise technology will underpin central computing and backup infrastructure.
Beyond the equipment, the economics of operating the physical network are substantial.
Of the €8.399 million categorized as other expenses, €4.875 million is allocated to co-location and maintenance of the 260 base-station sites for 41 months, including tower or mast space, equipment housing and primary and backup power. Another €2.757 million will pay for connecting the fixed and mobile stations to primary and backup backbone networks. Together, site hosting and telecommunications connections account for about €7.63 million—more than 21% of the initial pre-VAT contract.
The contract identifies only one declared OTE subcontractor, Intraway Consultants for Organization and Technologies, whose participation represents 0.4% of the project, or roughly €143,000 before VAT. Its role will be communications and publicity.
For the government, however, the bigger financial decision will come later. The new network costs €44.2 million including VAT to deploy. After the three-year warranty expires, keeping it under the contracted maintenance regime could add another €19.9 million. That could ultimately turn Greece’s new Fire Service communications network into a €64 million project.
