14 Jun 2018

ESN looking to quickly switch to open standards

During an update on the Emergency Services Network (ESN) at the BAPCO Satellite Series event in Edinburgh, Richard Hewlett, head of technology and the head of live services, ESMCP (Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme), revealed that the programme is considering dropping the pre-standard user functionality (Public Safety Communication System – PSCS) being developed by Motorola Solutions in favour of a 3GPP-compliant solution provided by Kodiak, a Motorola Solutions company.

“As part of the programme reset, we are considering a move to a standards-first delivery model. We believe that this will be of great benefit to both suppliers and stakeholders across the ESN ecosystem,” Hewlett said.“It will give suppliers a much clearer view of what they need to do to support [a] full suite of communication services built around the 3GPP international standards for mission-critical communications – that includes mission-critical push-to-talk, data, and video. The programme and ESN customers would also benefit from the global ecosystem of suppliers who are adapting solutions to the new international standards.

“The focus on moving to adopt international standards for the new network would mean replacing the current public safety communication services suite of applications with the latest Kodiak PTT over broadband platform from Motorola Solutions. Kodiak is typically integrated into a service offered by mobile network operators with Kodiak itself then providing the interface into their platform. There are already over one million users operating on Kodiak powered platforms today. These potential changes would put the programme on a path to fully international standards based ESN at a much earlier date than would have been possible.”