UK Home Office targets ESN system buildout finish by 2024 year end, Lot 2 award next year

United Kingdom (UK) Home Office officials believe most of the cell sites—also known as masts—necessary for the Emergency Service Network (ESN) will be completed by the end of the next year, according to a report filed with a Parliament committee.

This ESN coverage projection was noted in the system progress update provided in response to a report earlier this year from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which has been critical of the Home Office’s implementation of the much-delayed and over-budget ESN.

“The Home Office has delivered a large proportion of the technical programme of work required to start mass transition,” according to the Home Office response to the PAC. “The technical solutions for aircraft use between 500 and 10,000 feet has been proven. A successful coastline survey of Great Britain has proven the solution up to 12 miles out to sea.

“Over 700 of the 1000-plus new masts required have been built and are in operation; the programme is on course for completing 292 rural and remote masts by the end of 2024. Coverage has been provided in 71 special locations, and the programme is on track to provide coverage in the London Underground by the end of 2024.”

The LTE-based ESN initially was supposed to replace the nationwide Airwave TETRA system as the mission-critical network for UK first responders in 2019, but UK officials now do not expect the transition to happen until the end of the decade, although a firm date has not been provided—a fact noted by the PAC in its report.

“The Department currently has no firm estimates of when it will finish building ESN or what it will cost,” according to the PAC introduction to the Home Office report.

While the Home Office expressed its expectations that most of the ESN network infrastructure—built primarily by UK commercial wireless carrier EE, with the Home Office responsible for some rural cell sites—would be done by 2025, its response to the PAC included no timeline for the Airwave-to-ESN transition.

For this transition to happen, ESN service needs to support mission-critical push-to-talk communications, like the Airwave TETRA network does today for UK first-responder agencies. This functionality originally was supposed to be provided by Motorola Solutions, but the public-safety vendor giant last year announced it would depart the ESN initiative—a process that is supposed to be completed in December.

Motorola Solutions actually told Home Office officials of the company’s plans to exit the ESN project in November 2021 amid a Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation that initially threatened to force Motorola Solutions to divest its ownership of the Airwave system, according to the PAC introduction to the Home Office response.

Motorola Solutions continues to own the Airwave TETRA system, but the CMA ruled that Airwave should be subject to price controls that project to cost Motorola Solutions more than $1 billion in projected revenue from the system during the rest of the decade.

Motorola Solutions has appealed the CMA decision to the Competition Appeal Tribunal, which conducted a two-day hearing on the matter in early August but has yet to rule on the appeal. Until a decision is announced, the Competition Appeal Tribunal suspended the CMA’s price-control regime.

PAC members have expressed concerns that UK public-safety agencies must continue to pay for new Airwave devices while awaiting the ESN to be operational, at which time the agencies will have to pay for devices that will work on the broadband network. The PAC recommended that the Home Office explore the possibility of using the Airwave savings from the CMA decision to provide funding for these agency expenses.

In its response to the PAC, the Home Office stated that it agrees with the recommendation but noted that the process is not as straightforward as the PAC recommendation suggests.

“Scope for central support is limited by the way government funds are allocated across departments, policy areas and programmes,” according to the Home Office response, noting that the CMA ruling must be upheld for the UK government to realize any Airwave savings. “This will constrain the ability to pass the charge control savings directly onto users.

“The reduced costs of Airwave will result in an overall government saving, rather than a department or programme gain.”

In addition, the Home Office response states that “users are expected to realize savings from reduced Airwave costs. Delayed spend on ESN devices will offset the cost of new Airwave devices.”

Meanwhile, the Home Office must identify a vendor/vendor group to replace Motorola Solutions as the provider of LTE push-to-talk functionality. The Home Office reported received bids for the procurement—known as Lot 2—earlier this year, and a new contract for the ESN role during the first half of next year, according to Home Office response.

Prior to the Lot 2 award, the Home Office plans to submit by the end of this year a control plan that will include details outlining how the ESN will function when the LTE-based system is operational, which will become the ESN full program plan after the Lot 2 vendor—a “service integrator”—is selected, according to the Home Office response. A business case for the ESN is expected to be submitted in March 2024.

After the Lot 2 award is made, the Home Office plans to have the Independent Assurance Panel (IAP) review whether the revamped ESN strategy is realistic and whether the ESN has what the PAC describes as “a credible integration plan and the resources in place to deliver it.” These IAP reviews are scheduled to be completed by the end of June 2024 and in July 2024, according to the Home Office response.

One final PAC conclusion was that the Home Office “risks creating a new monopoly supplier in EE, which could reduce long-term value for money.”

In an attempt to allay these fears, a new contract with EE—reportedly needed when the current contract expires at the end of 2024—will be awarded “with a gain-share mechanism built in” to give the Home Office visibility of the carrier’s finances, including gross profit margin and any savings realized via sharing between EE and the Home Office.

Augmenting this approach is a plan that the new contract “will be structured to allow for the Home Office to reprocure all ESN suppliers around 2 years after programme completion,” according to the Home Office response.