Emergency Services Network: looking at the future of mobile communications

Last year the Home Office announced that the Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme (ESMCP) will be replacing services provided by Airwave Solutions Ltd with a new national mobile communication service. The Emergency Services Network (ESN) will feature voice and on-demand data services, including specific public safety features.

The cross-departmental programme began in 2011 and seeks to develop and implement a secure and interoperable mobile communications solution for the three emergency services and other category 1 and 2 responders.

The reason for this change is because contracts with the current supplier, Airwave, and other commercial providers using the next generation commercial network (4G LTE), will start to expire from 2016. According to the ESMCP, it is felt that Airwave is expensive when compared with similar systems more recently deployed in other countries. Additionally, although Airwave was the first national public safety network based on the TETRA technology standard, the technology used by the existing TETRA system is not capable of delivering broadband data services, which users are acquiring directly from the telecoms market.