Motorola loses appeal to kill price cap on UK Airwave emergency services contract

Motorola's appeal against price controls on the longstanding mission-critical Airwave network used by the UK emergency services was dismissed by a tribunal, meaning the cap imposed by the regulator must stand. The ruling is the latest development in an epic saga over communications for Britain’s emergency services, currently …

[elsergiovolador]

Classic

Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to judge it a monopoly provider in October 2022 and propose price controls on the existing platform, as it claimed the lack of competition was allowing Motorola to make excessive profits.

Why is this even run by a private company? Privatise profits, socialise losses?

This should have been in-house state run affair. But I guess the current government couldn't run a bath.

Seems like Con-servatives have lost the plot in every aspect of running the country.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Classic

Airwave was established as a private business 23 years ago. Who was in government then?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Classic

More relevant was who was in government when the procurement process was set up…

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Classic

That's irrelevant. Any subsequent government could have taken it in house as it should be.

[Martin Summers]

Re: Classic

"This should have been in-house state run affair. But I guess the current government couldn't run a bath."

You've made the argument for privatisation right there.

[highfrequency]

Re: Classic

I agree that critical communications should never be a commercial enterprise. The system has delivered vast profits to its owners whilst at the same time cost the taxpayers a considerable amount, not to mention the restrictions it's prohibitable cost has placed on it's users.

The political point doesn't really stand though as it was conceived under Labour during their failed PFI phase.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me get this straight...

Motorola went way, way over time on building the replacement system, while they were being paid for use of the existing system. Customers had nowhere else to turn; they had to pay for the existing system. That sounds like a monopoly to me. And then Motorola gets mad that they're not allowed to charge anything they want for use of the existing system.

Keep the current price controls in place, and fine Motorola 5x the amount they were paid for the new system they didn't build. No, you are not allowed to turn government contracts into a license to print money.

For the replacement system, hire a company (not Motorola) to design and build it, but government owns the design. Specs to be given for free to any government department that wants them, so they can pick their own maintenance and replacement parts vendor.

[Roopee]

Re: Let me get this straight...

Yes, it does rather sound as though Motorola had a very vested interest in not delivering ESN at all, let alone on time and within budget...

[Bitsminer]

Re: Let me get this straight...

...hire a company (not Motorola) to design and build it, but government owns the design...

That should be normal practice, if the government is paying for a new design. If the government legal team is doing their.....

Oh. Never mind.

[ARGO]

Re: Let me get this straight...

Motorola only had the contract for part of the system - the service layer stuff.

Then they bought the legacy Airwave system.

As el-reg commentards noted at the time, that didn't leave them with much incentive to develop the new system - but the regulators apparently knew better than us.

The radio coverage is coming from EE, and devices are expected to come from the usual suspects.

All three elements are late, and services especially so after the re-tender noted above.

[John Brown (no body)]

Again?

""We believe this unprecedented overreach will have a chilling effect on long-term investment and contracting with the UK government. "

Yeah, Microsoft said something very similar over the CMA/Activision thing at the time. But they walked it back not long after. Lashing out when you lose seems to the be the "in thing" these days, but then in the cold light of day they realise that no matter how upset you are with a huge customer, you still need to play nice with them.

[Coastal cutie]

It's not fair

"But, but...... we wined and dined all those people, we paid a fortune for consultants, we hired expensive lawyers and still we can't do as we please.... Waaaaah, it's not fair!"

[Thicko]

Last year, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) published a highly critical report claiming there had "never been a realistic plan for ESN" and there was no evidence it would work as well as the current system. Blow me sideways, the PAC is completely correct! ESN is still vaporware. It's made a cruise liner full of consultants very happy indeed though. Huawei said a decade ago (its in The Reg somewhere) that trying to jam an ESN network onto 4G was like knocking a square peg in a round hole and so far they have not been proved wrong. I bet this saga is going on in 5 more years.

[highfrequency]

There's no wonder we have no money for public services when stuff like this is happening. It was clear from day one that tendering a contract for a technology which doesn't yet exist is madness.

The lack of scrutiny is just appalling and would not happen in a private enterprise.

[Anonymous Coward]

The lack of scrutiny is just appalling and would not happen in a private enterprise.

Hmmm. My personal experience working for an £11bn a year UK business which went bust courtesy of a failed IT procurement and implementation says it certainly would and indeed did.

[steviebuk]

The government

"Will announce today that the new contract has been awarded to...... Fujitsu"