FACTBOX: Details of high-tech border project

(Reuters) - A newly completed high-tech "virtual fence" on part of the U.S. border with Mexico is intended as a test for technology that could be used in various configurations along the 2,000-mile (3,200-km) frontier.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Friday declared the 28-mile (45-km) project near Nogales, Arizona ready for service, after months of delay caused by software problems.

The project was built by Boeing Co for $20 million, as the first phase of a broader secure border project estimated to cost $2.5 billion. Following are components of the project:

-- Nine mobile sensor towers intended to improve detection of illegal crossings.

-- Fifty vehicles equipped with rugged laptop computers capable of displaying a "common operating picture" that gives a shared, multimedia overview of the border area.

-- Three "rapid response" vehicles to more quickly take captured illegal immigrants to detention facilities.

-- Fifty satellite telephones, intended to improve communications in the barren border area.

-- Two command units.

(Reporting by Randall Mikkelsen, source, Boeing Co, Editing by Eric Walsh)