A Massachusetts company successfully defended a mammoth, $2 billion contract to build an emergency radio network across New York, after agreeing to guarantee its work.

The deal with M/A-Com Inc. reportedly is the largest high-tech project ever undertaken in New York history, and the largest state public-safety communications project ever.

New York originally valued the contract at $1 billion a year ago when it initially awarded the deal to M/A-Com, which will create a unified radio system for police, fire, medical and other first-response units. The project is expected to take five years, after which M/A-Com will maintain the system for 20 years more.

The contract immediately came under legislative scrutiny after M/A-Com out-bid Motorola Inc. for the work last year. The project also faced environmental questions, due to the need to erect radio towers in New York's Adirondack State Park.

"We have negotiated a contract with the prime contractor, M/A-Com, that has significant financial safeguards to protect the state's investment," said Michael McCormack, director of the New York Office of Technology, in a prepared statement.

M/A-Com, of Lowell, Mass., is a unit of Tyco International Ltd. of Bermuda.

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