thiruvananthapuram the prisons in the state are set to switch over to tetra an advanced mobile radio communication technology which offers fast transmission of information as part of general surveillance overhaul the department of prisons and correctional services has entered into an agreement with department of telecommunications under the union ministry of communications for the same tetra originally called transeuropean trunked radio and later named as terrestrial trunked radio offers individual calls calls involving two persons group calls priority calls call authentication late entry and voice encryption it combines features of mobile radio cellular phone paging and wireless data and is equipped with builtin encryption features to ensure the confidentiality of sensitive data communication tetra is also designed to transfer data at faster speeds than that of mobile communications regardless of trafficr sreelekha director general of prisons and correctional services said tetra communication is being introduced in prisons in the state as part of overall surveillance upgradethere had been instances where prisoners smuggle phones and use them inside prison for communication we are broadening installation of mobile phone jammers in central prisons and open jails existing jammers are being upgraded so communication becomes a problem thats where tetra communication comes into play the headquarters station will function in dgp prisons office equipment and stations are ready and the agreement has been signed all messages passed on via tetra gets recorded and can be saved for future purpose said r sreelekhathe project is being implemented at a cost of rs 225 crore which has already been deposited with cdac the implementing agency for the project we are awaiting cmrt license captive mobile radio trunking to use a permanent unique frequency for tetra communication in prisons the system will be introduced in three major prisons initially poojapura viyyur and kannur it will then be introduced in other correctional homes after we observe the mode of its functioning said s santosh director sica dig of prisons south zonethe department had experimented with conventional wireless sets for communication in prisons twenty years ago however feeble frequency high interference made it unpopular among prison staff and wireless sets were discontinued use of mobile phones inside prisons by undertrial prisoners especially in high profile cases has always been a headache for prisons department the introduction of tetra is also expected to give a new dimension to cctv system in jails as of now even if an official spot something on cctv camera the message is conveyed manually as staff are not allowed to use mobile phone you must walk the distance and convey the message which results in slower communication once tetra is adopted messages related to cctv surveillance can be instantaneously passed on to the official on duty it can even be communicated directly to other prison offices implementation of tetra upgradation of cctv will be done simultaneously installation of towers has been entrusted with the agency concerned said santosh