UK watchdog CMA delays provisional decision on Moto-Airwave investigation to September

A report outlining a United Kingdom (UK) competition regulator’s provisional decision is not expected to be complete until September—a three-month delay when compared to the previous schedule—according to a new administrative timeline released today by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

CMA posted the new timeline on its website as observers of the investigation anticipated that release of the provisional-decision report—set for completion in June, based on the previous timeline revision—could be imminent. As an example, the final briefings before the provisional decision were submitted by the end of May, but redacted versions of the submittals were not released until June 28.

Under the new administrative timeline, CMA is slated to make its provisional decision whether to alter Motorola Solutions’ role in Airwave—the nationwide TETRA system that provides mission-critical communications to UK first responders—but it is unclear when the report would be released publicly.

After making its provisional decision in September, CMA will conduct response hearings and receive final input from all interested parties during October and November, according to the new administrative timeline. A report with the final CMA decision is supposed to be published in December, shortly before a contract between the UK Home Office and Motorola Solutions for a $2.09 billion, four-year deal to extend the life of the Airwave system through the end of 2026 takes effect.

These actions will be taken under new UK leadership. Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned this week, and his successor—either former Finance Minister Rishi Sunak or Foreign Secretary Liz Truss—will be announced on Sept. 5 after an election is conducted by Conservative Party membership.

At issue in the CMA investigation is Motorola Solutions’ role in the present and future communications systems supporting UK public-safety personnel. Motorola Solutions owns the existing Airwave TETRA system and is contracted to provide key software and services for the LTE-based Emergency Services Network (ESN) that originally was supposed to replace Airwave in 2019.

But the ESN still is not ready for public-safety use, resulting in the need for the expensive Airwave network to be used much longer than planned. The UK Home Office initially signed a three-year extension with Motorola Solutions to keep Airwave operating through 2022, and a four-year extension was signed late last year to ensure that Airwave would continue operating through 2026.

One issue for the ESN is the fact that the LTE network is not complete—notably, most of the rural cell sites that the UK Home Office is responsible to build have not been finished or are not operational.

In addition, ESN needs to have mission-critical-push-to-talk (MCPTT) implemented as a mission-critical-voice alternative to the existing LMR system. The MCPTT offering is supposed to be supplied by Motorola Solutions—based on the PTT platform gained by purchasing Kodiak in 2017—but UK Home Office officials repeatedly have cited MCPTT issues as key reasons for the delay in ESN.

Many UK officials have expressed concern that Motorola Solutions is slowing the delivery of MCPTT to ensure that UK first responders remain dependent on Airwave—a much more lucrative contract for Motorola Solution than the ESN. Motorola Solutions repeatedly has denied this, noting that there are numerous other area besides MCPTT that have created ESN delays.

Whatever the reasons for the ESN delay, it has become a costly proposition for the UK government and its taxpayers. According to a filing by Home Office Secretary Matthew Rycroft that was updated in May, the total cost of the Airwave-to-ESN transition has risen by 6.2 billion pounds—about $7.6 billion, or more than the total cost of the much larger FirstNet system in the U.S.—since the project was procured in 2015.

Potential CMA actions in the matter including requiring Motorola Solutions to divest Airwave or establish some sort of price controls on Airwave service. Motorola Solutions contends that no such remedies are needed or would be appropriate.