The Ministry of Interior has ordered all of its police to stay on a fixed shortwave radio frequency that will be off-limits to private users and has asked help from the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications to stop illegal users from hampering security efforts.
All police and the military rely on shortwave radios, or I-coms, for communication, but the airwaves often carry conversations, screaming matches and even drunken singing from private users.
But ahead of the Greater Mekong Subregion and Asean summits and not-far-off Asean Tourism Forum, the ministry is policing the airwaves. The ministry hopes to limit who can use its bandwidths.
“If anyone violates the policy by using [Interior] frequencies to disturb communication of police, the radios will be confiscated,” the ministry said in a directive Oct 18.
The Interior Ministry is calling on the MPTC to be more vigilant of I-com users, requiring stricter enforcement of regulations.
“Without registered licenses from the MPTC, communication through the radios will disturb the work of security police,” said Meas Po, MPTC’s deputy director of the radio frequency management department.
MPTC officials have said that at least 50 percent of I-com users use frequencies without proper registration, and it has employed two high-tech vans with satellite links to combat the problem. The vans, $2 million each, pinpoint illegal telecoms equipment.
“We are able to know the location of illegal satellite installments, and we will know who is using radio frequencies illegally,” Meas Po said.
