Motorola Solutions touts financial visibility, does not expect new public-safety LTE revenue in 2017

Motorola Solutions is contracted to provide software and data-center solutions for ESN—commercial carrier EE will deploy the public-safety LTE network—which evnetually is expected to provide mission-critical data and voice communication for the Home Office, which oversees first responders in Britain. Until the ESN is ready, British public-safety personnel will continue to operate on the Airwave TETRA system that Motorola Solutions purchased in February 2016.

Some British media reports have questioned whether Motorola Solutions would benefit more financially by having the ESN transition delayed beyond the end of 2019, because it would allow the communications to extend its lucrative Airwave revenue stream. Brown declined to comment on the matter.

“I think it is too early to speculate on the impact of Airwave,” Brown said. “So we’ll just continue to work closely with the customer, making sure that Airwave performs the way it needs to—it has, and I think it will continue to. “From a contract standpoint, we’re very pleased with the Airwave acquisition, but we are equally cognizant of doing everything we can for the Home Office on the ESN, and we’ll manage those interdependencies.”

As for FirstNet, Brown said Motorola Solutions does not anticipate any revenue from the initiative during 2017.

“We’re still actively in the game, and we’ll see how it unfolds,” Brown said. “I think the opportunity there for us could be around broadband-enabled devices, mobile apps and software services. I think we’re well positioned there, especially given the coverage in the U.S. and the domain expertise around public safety … We’ll see what happens over the next few months.”