back to article Up to £895M up for grabs in UK Emergency Services procurement

The UK’s Home Office has put up to £895 million ($1.1 billion) on offer in the search for a tech supplier to provide “user services” for the Emergency Services Network, a controversial public sector project that is delayed by more than five years and over-spent by billions of pounds. The ESN has long been intended to replace …

  1. Flak
    Coffee/keyboard

    What a shower!

    This is another procurement shambles worthy of a public inquiry.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: What a shower!

      The requirements will still be for a 4G solution with super-special PTT by the time 6G comes out. Not the 6G spec, mind, but actual 6G phones in shops you can use to make calls on working 6G networks.

    2. Korev Silver badge
      Childcatcher

      Re: What a shower!

      This is another procurement shambles worthy of a public inquiry.

      We all know the chances of that are somewhere between "Not a chance in hell" and "Heat death of the universe"

  2. Korev Silver badge
    Coat

    In October last year, the CMA put forward plans to cap Motorola's fees on the existing Airwave network, which, together with the Home Office's negotiations with Motorola, led the US tech supplier to walk away from its £400 million ($498 million) contract for ESN.

    So Motorola copped out...

    1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

      The gravy train reached the end of the line.

      1. Korev Silver badge
        Coat

        It's time to Airwave goodbye

  3. VoiceOfTruth Silver badge

    I wonder if

    American companies will be allowed to bid for this. Probably yes, because being spied on by the Americans is OK.

  4. Herring`

    Missing something

    I'm not an expert in radio comms, but why do they want a solution based upon mobile phone tech? How long do mobile networks keep going in a power outage? It's not hard to enviage some sort of emergency which takes out power and/or masts. Plus, if you have an emergency in West Wales, are you on your own?

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: Missing something

      It was what the first consultancy they asked told them to do and there's no changing their minds.

    2. Red Ted

      Re: Missing something

      A major part of the EE work is to expand their network to have high geographic coverage as opposed to population coverage, which resulted in them building a lot of base stations in rural parts of the country.

    3. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: Missing something

      I'm not an expert in radio comms, but why do they want a solution based upon mobile phone tech?

      Better speed and bandwdth than what's available with existing radio tech. There are other radio technologies that offer something better, but I expect they'd require investment in a nationwide network of masts. A solution based on existing phone network means existing infrastructure can be utilised with upgrading/extending where necessary.

      How long do mobile networks keep going in a power outage?

      Based on experience of the local phone mast and not-unusal powercuts...not long enough. I usually lose mobile signal after less than half an hour. That's a Vodafone-owned mast though - I'd like to think that EE base stations which would form the ESN would be upgraded to give them more resilience, although that might be a bold assumption on my part :-/

      It's not hard to enviage some sort of emergency which takes out power and/or masts.

      True, but those scenarios wouldn't be specific to phone masts - a TETRA mast could equally well cop an unfortunate lightning strike

      1. Herring`

        Re: Missing something

        Hey, I worked with the BT Transcomm Mobitex system for a while and that sent data fine. Not much data. But some.

        1. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge

          Re: Missing something

          I worked with that too - quite a lot of years ago now. At the time I remember it being a bit of a pain to integrate with compared to GPRS (which some of my other customers were using) but real-world performance offered similar speeds to GPRS. I've since moved on from working with those customers, but I expect that the improved performance of 3G/4G/5G from a simple GSM modem means that they'll have moved away from Mobitex by now.

    4. Mint Sauce
      Thumb Down

      Re: Missing something

      "Plus, if you have an emergency in West Wales, are you on your own?"

      I mean, quite often yes. But that's more to do with the lack of emergency services coverage here rather than any communications issues. Best to make your own way to hospital here, rather than waiting for an ambulance for example (and that's not a slur on the overworked WAS staff, there's just not enough of 'em).

  5. Coastal cutie

    I reckon I've got more chance of seeing a unicorn galloping down the beach than I have of seeing this delivered

  6. TeeCee Gold badge

    Typical.

    You'd have thought they'd have learned by now.

    It may well look like the upcoming standard, commercial offering is lacking a bell somewhere or one of its whistles is in the wrong key, but you can bet your bum that it'll be there and working years ahead of whatever your public sector project is supposed[1] to deliver.

    COTS procurement beats reinventing the wheel every time.

    [1] And you won't get that as all the bells and whistles will be descoped to get something out the door about ten years late.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like