Will UK Home Office really be stupid and stubborn enough to switch off Airwave in 3 years’ time?

The evidence is stacking up against a UK switch-off of nationwide emergency services network, Airwave, as planned in December 2019.

A recent UK Parliament Public Account Committee Inquiry focusing on Emergency Services Communications to discuss a UK National Audit Office report on the current state of ESN (Emergency Services Network) has shone light on a surprisingly high number of risks involved with switching so abruptly from Airwave Solutions' nationwide public safety TETRA network to the new ESN based on a commercial LTE solution provided by EE.

Some key takeaways from the Inquiry session were the following:

• The users themselves don’t believe the programme can be delivered on time.
• User representatives will not advise their Chiefs to switch over to the new service & switch off Airwave until they are 100% certain that the new solution is fit-for-purpose & puts officer safety first.
• Most observers have very serious reservations about EE’s ability to hit ambitious coverage targets of 97% UK geographical coverage by September 2017.
• No ESN-ready devices have yet been tested outside the laboratory.
• Users are still waiting for a network and devices to be delivered before they can start getting ready for switch-over.
• The overall timetable for 12 UK regions is looking increasingly ambitious and unrealistic.
• No agreement has yet been reached between Home Office & Transport for London to provide ESN coverage on London Underground.
• The failure to transition to the new network on time has huge potential cost implications for UK taxpayers.

Too many questions remain for us to feel confident or even comfortable with the approach being taken by UK Home Office. Too many questions require positive answers over the coming 12-18 months or so for ESN to succeed in its current form:

• What happens if a significant number of users refuse to move to ESN?
• What happens if - perhaps for various reasons out of their control - EE fails to reach the ambitious coverage targets set by Home Office?
• What happens if - perhaps for reasons out of their control - Motorola Solutions are unable to deliver a scalable, fully-functional nationwide MCPTT capability that allows a seamless transition from Airwave to ESN for all 12 regions within a reasonable time-frame.
• What happens if costs start to escalate in any part of the Programme & it becomes clear that the predicted cost savings are unlikely to materialise & emergency services budgets will not be sufficient to deliver a sustainable ESN?
• What happens if any of the critical partners in this Programme pull out of the process for any number of reasons over the coming 12-18 months & need to be replaced during an already challenging time-frame?
• What happens if a major incident occurs during 2019 that seriously impacts the ability of the Programme to be delivered, after the final decision has already been taken in December 2018 not to renew sites, licences, contracts etc.?

If a commercial enterprise running a commercial network fails for whatever reason, it is always possible to switch to another commercial operator. A Government department in charge of an Emergency Services Programme does not have this luxury. I would not like to be the person responsible for explaining the collapse of such a programme to the emergency services & the public they serve. Let's hope this never happens.

We all know & agree that 3GPP standards solutions are the future of critical communications, including emergency services. Everyone within our community is working towards this goal as diligently & as quickly as possible. We also all agree that commercial operators will play a leading role in the delivery of critical communications solutions in the future, in close partnership & cooperation with the authorities, regulators & the public, building increasingly resilient solutions, boosting coverage & capacity all the way to the edge of their networks & sharing the costs of filling in gaps in coverage & providing services.

There are thousands of people across UK working tirelessly to deliver the new Emergency Services Network. Talented, hard-working, fully committed civil servants in UK Home Office & ESMCP. Best-in-class partners providing consultancy services; integration & migration services; building extra capacity in their mobile networks; working in standards bodies, product & service specifications; control rooms; commissioning radio sites; working on innovative services.

However, the original flawed assessment, motives & incentives chosen by HM Government mean that the Programme can no longer be delivered without fundamental changes to its overall strategy, governance, time-frame, technology options, financing model, risk-sharing model, incentives, transparency (Open Government) & better communications channels with all relevant stakeholders, including all user groups & the public. The problem we face is that no-one in a position of authority who might be able to steer the ESN super-tanker away from the rocks appears to be willing to change course at this late stage. Time is running out.

There are numerous examples of leading mobile operators around the world who are collaborating with Governments & emergency services to deliver innovative broadband solutions without the need to switch off existing networks until the time is right. I have written about many of these initiatives in previous articles & will continue to study best practice around the world as part of a future Quixoticity Global Critical Communications Index that will be published for the first time during early 2017.

I have a strong feeling that the UK ESN saga is most likely to evolve as follows:

• Probably before the end of 2017, it will become clear that ESN cannot be delivered in its current form.
• This should still allow enough time for the sensible re-negotiation of all existing TETRA contracts & the reversal of job losses & essential CAPEX/OPEX at Airwave Solutions.
• Airwave will continue at a lower cost to taxpayers beyond 2025 for essential mission-critical voice & short data services, with one final upgrade/refresh/essential maintenance in 2018-19 & one final refresh of devices, including dual-mode models, to see it through to end-of-life.
• EE and perhaps other MNOs will continue to roll out their LTE networks at a more sensible pace, gradually incorporating the new mission-critical functionality of 3GPP Releases 12, 13 and 14 into their solutions, fulfilling current mobile data contracts, as well as signing up remaining public safety customers according to real needs & requirements, without undue Government pressure to take one particular service.
• Motorola will continue to develop & enhance its WAVE 7000 solution for interoperability between TETRA & ESN & suppliers will deliver IP/cloud-based, next-generation control room solutions to emergency services allowing multiple technologies to be pulled together for relatively seamless operations & gradual incorporation of new services again based on real needs & requirements.
• A few sacrificial lambs ("a few throats to choke") will be found at UK Home Office/ESN/ESMCP & new people will be put in charge of Government oversight of emergency services communications, with bloated bureaucracies & unclear chains of command making way for a better Government-Industry balance with incentives better aligned for future successful delivery of public services.
• Another Inquiry will be held to learn the lessons from past failures.
• UK will pull back from the brink of disaster just in time, falling in line with the rest of Europe & the world by developing a hybrid public-private, MC-LTE/TETRA capability with further industry & operator consolidation & Government support/oversight.
• UK will be better prepared to cope with terrorist attacks, New Year’s Eve, floods, riots and Royal Weddings/Funerals by combining the best of all available technologies that will eventually all be tied into a converged, unified network that will be marketed as 5G & combine high data speeds with huge volumes of devices & data all running over a highly resilient, secure, mission-critical platform optimised for different users' needs.
• Then, some time towards the end of the 2020s, the nationwide TETRA network will quietly be switched off without fanfares and without drama, safe in the knowledge that it served the emergency services & the public well during its 25-30 years of service.

A pervasiveness of ignorant, short-term, narrow-minded, binary thinking appears to have taken control of Western nations in recent times polluting our social, political & economic landscape & leading us into dangerous - potentially catastrophic - scenarios over the coming decade or so. Ever since US President, George W. Bush declared in 2001 that "you are either with us or against us", the world has become more divided & more binary. We are increasingly living in a world of false "binary choices" - me or you; old or new; backwards or forwards; in or out; TETRA v LTE; Airwave v ESN.

The truth is more subtle; the best solution tends to combine the best of both sides of an argument; the best solution requires us to learn from experience, look forward as far as possible & consider everyone's point of view without imposing a single line of reasoning, closing our ears to the alternatives or carrying on regardless when the evidence starts to mount up against us. I sincerely hope I am wrong & that ESN is implemented on time, on budget & to the satisfaction of all emergency users up and down the country. Somehow, however, I feel the chances of this happening are getting slimmer & slimmer by the day.

Of course, the title I chose for this article is unfair on the Home Office: stupidity is a very strong term used for effect to get more people to read this article. Let's hope - finally - we can generate a real debate, following this excellent opportunity afforded by the NAO Report & subsequent Parliamentary Inquiry. However, whether decisions are stupid or stubborn doesn't really matter. What matters is the outcome. If switching off Airwave in 3 years' time will lead to bad outcomes, escalating costs, inferior public safety & unbearable risks, then it should not happen. As Richard Bacon said during the Inquiry:

[Home Office's definition of] "unreasonable behaviour" (if a Police Commissioner or other high-ranking official refuses to switch from Airwave to ESN) could also be considered "safeguarding the public".

Enough is enough. Recent Governments have already cut the budgets of public services - including police & other emergency services - beyond what could be considered reasonable for a civilised society. We are in serious danger of being unable to cope with future challenges to public safety because of certain individuals within HM Treasury, Cabinet Office & Home Office, with limited knowledge & understanding of critical communications, calling all the shots. Critics can easily be silenced via civil service contract clauses, NDAs, the implicit threat of being shut out of public contracts, straightforward political correctness or simply, good old British stoicism.

It is our duty to resist all the enemies of an open society & Open Government & speak up when our turn comes - or forever hold our peace!