21 Sep 2018

ESN's 'new strategic direction'

The UK Home Office has announced what it describes as “a new strategic direction” for the Emergency Services Network, following its review of the programme.

The Home Office says that this decision has secured the future of ESN and that the programme will result in £200 million in savings per year once it has fully replaced the Airwave TETRA-based network.

According to a press release from Motorola Solutions an agreement between it and the Home Office over the Airwave network is expected to be completed later this year and will “extend the network on substantially similar terms for three additional years to Dec. 31, 2022, with the option to be further extended. The company will also upgrade this critical public safety network to ensure the requirements of public safety users continue to be met.”

The same release also stated that as part of its delivery of ESN User Services, Motorola Solutions will implemented a 3GPP standards based push-to-talk (PTT) solution. This will use technology from Kodiak Networks, which was acquired by Motorola Solutions in 2017. Due to the Home Office’s new phased deployment strategy for ESN, the Motorola Solutions ESN agreement will be extended by 30 months through the end of 2024.