Let's stop this madness, scrap obsolete ESN & begin again

For a number of years now, a growing number of critical communications experts from UK & around the world have been watching with horror as the UK Government, led by HM Treasury, Cabinet Office & Home Office, has attempted to deliver a next-generation communications network for public safety & emergency services personnel.

At times it has been painful to watch - at other times, almost comical - to listen to the arguments justifying the radical course that has been taken: to switch off the existing highly-reliable, trusted & dependable nationwide Airwave TETRA solution & jump straight to an unproven pre-standards, commercial solution shared with the public & not reaching the same geographical coverage as its predecessor.

To many of us, therefore, it has been a scandal in the first place that it took a comprehensive NAO report in September 2016 & then an uncomfortable-to-watch Parliamentary Inquiry in November 2016 to bring to light the serious shortcomings of the Emergency Services Network (ESN)/Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme (ESMCP) process & to open up the possibility of UKGov at least considering an alternative, more sensible approach that we have been reporting on now for some considerable time.

(It was also no surprise to me that my own personal comments to the Inquiry were completely ignored. Hence the need to communicate with the community & industry through these increasingly popular LinkedIn posts. Thank God for social media - when it serves an important social purpose)

Last week, the Conclusions & Recommendations from November's Parliamentary Inquiry were finally published. A brief summary of these findings are:

1. It is unlikely the ambitious target date for delivering ESN will be met.

2. There is no budget for an extended transition period & no detailed contingency plans.

3. ESN is based on unproven technology, in spite of the life-or-death role played by critical communications.

4. There was no serious competition for the 2 main ESN contracts

5. The incumbents will be in a strong position when ESN is re-competed.

For the rest of this article, I will not focus on the technical or financial arguments surrounding ESN, which are by now well known & can be found in previous articles & in copious literature surrounding the whole process.

In fact, I will assume that ESN is now no longer deliverable in its current form & has been made obsolete, outdated & become an outlier within global critical communications, which is now heading in a totally different direction towards a converged "5G vision" by 2030.

In other words, there is no way to change a few numbers in a spread sheet or make a few adjustments to the time-line or particular clauses within existing contracts. ESN is no longer viable, period. 

Following failed negotiations with Airwave owners back in 2012/13, the UK Government made a brave attempt to drive forward a radical new vision for emergency services communications, creating the ESMCP/ESN programme which was "the most advanced of its kind" anywhere in the world. The Home Office would drive a process that would place the most advanced, powerful mobile broadband technology in the hands of emergency services to protect UK from modern threats for the next decade & beyond.

It is now clear in January 2017 that this process has failed. Let's look at what now needs to be done, as quickly as possible to make up for the time that has been lost:

Firstly, UK Government - and Governments all around the world - need to update their procurement processes to research/develop/implement new emerging Blockchain-based technology solutions that will make it harder for procurement teams to hide behind blanket use & abuse of NDAs & Official Secrets Act; hidden or false assumptions & biases; abuses of power etc. & force them to engage more openly with those directly affected by their decisions - i.e. all of us.

Honesty, transparency & trust are in short supply today within Governments everywhere, but Open Government is coming & probably much faster than most civil servants, bureaucrats, politicians - & many large organisations who have managed to game the current system - realise. The current secrecy surrounding ESN is ridiculous & totally unnecessary & damaging to the whole process. Those internal communications & of course all emergency services communications that need to remain private for national security reasons can be encrypted & protected; a lot of the process & reporting would benefit & be strengthened from having some light shone on it.

Secondly, we need to separate out the mission-critical voice component from the mobile high-speed data/video component. From the very beginning, ESN has confusingly tried to combine 2 very different services. One day, we hope - 2025-30? 5G? -, these 2 complementary services will be combined in a single solution, but this was never going to be the case by end-2019.

Therefore, the existing nationwide TETRA solution - the only viable solution today or tomorrow to deliver truly mission-critical voice - needs to be maintained, renewed & fully funded through at least 2025. The sooner this is accepted, the better; & the better deal UK Government will be able to achieve from Airwave's current owners.

An 8-10 year, fixed-price contract for MC-Voice service negotiated in good faith by all parties for the good of the nation will be much better & more cost-effective in the long run than an improvised, confused month-by-month, region-by-region approach starting in 2020. This would also allow authorities to undertake at least one more complete refresh of TETRA or TETRA+LTE radio terminals without fear of obsolescence.

Most police forces & many other emergency services agencies already have existing contracts in place for separate mobile broadband service from UK mobile network operators (MNOs), which could also be renewed for similar periods.

The best way to guarantee that all MNOs improve their network coverage & enhance their LTE offerings with the new critical functionality is to allow all of them to compete for Government contracts  based on very strict criteria laid down by the relevant authorities. For the next few years, emergency services would be able to continue to test out the new fully-standardised Release 12/13/14/15 mission-critical functions as they are deployed, gradually building up capabilities, resilience before being able to declare them mission-critical at some stage during the 2020s.

This would allow us to continue the current global standards process within 3GPP & other SDOs, incorporating mission-critical features into Releases 12, 13, 14 & 15, together with the necessary integration of TETRA/P25/DMR to LTE-AP/5G. In an increasingly mobile, interconnected world of IoT, drones, robots, connected cars, AR/VR & more, MNOs will need to build in more & more critical features into their networks to compete for commercial, industrial & critical customers, so there will be enough incentives from the market alone to compete to offer service to the most demanding customers.

As we look out towards the brave new world of 2030 where everything is connected & everything is smart, the whole path being followed by ESN is already looking horrendously outdated, obsolete & heading down a proprietary, pre-standards cul-de-sac.

By mid-2020s, spectrum should also be available for mission-critical services, following recent rulings at ITU's WRC-15 which will soon be implemented on a global, regional & national basis. It is unfortunate that USA, Canada - & unfortunately a country that is very dear to my heart, Bolivia - jumped the gun a decade ago by choosing a different slice of 700 MHz for their critical services than the rest of the world.

The 700 MHz APT band (Band 28 + perhaps Band 68 or similar) is now the focus of attention for low-band 5G/IoT/PPDR services in the majority of countries world-wide & Korea & Dubai/UAE have already assigned significant parts of this spectrum to public safety.

Certain parts of UHF - especially 450-470 MHz - could also be used for wide-area public safety/PPDR/critical users, together with new emerging bands such as 1.4 GHz, 3.5/3.6 GHz & even higher bands for hot-spots/personal area networks of the future.

It now becomes clear just how much of an outlier UK ESN has now become in the world of critical communications, regarding its procurement process, governance, choice of technologies, spectrum & ease of integration with emerging solutions & how obsolete & outdated the whole process now looks in early 2017.

The Parliamentary Inquiry concludes that it will take another look at progress made by September 2017. For me, this no longer makes any sense because it is now very clear which way the wind is blowing for global critical communications. ESN is simply no longer viable in its current form & needs to be scrapped - as soon as possible.

Time to begin again. Time to accept that it was a brave experiment that failed. Time to future-proof UK emergency services communications & build a best-practice critical communications system of systems, aligned with global markets, fully integrated with existing/future solutions, fully backwards/forwards compatible & fit-for-purpose for all UK emergency services & UK public.

Now, what do you think?