Motorola it seems are in talks to extend the contract for their Airwave digital radio system, AGAIN. Airwave is the current emergency services radio system & it looks like it will remain that way for another 4 years. As the new EE run radio system to replace airwave, should have been operable in 2019, but it is still not ready!
I am not sure what the current situation is with Emergency Services Network (ESN.) But it was £3 billion over budget in 2019 & £1.4 billion of that was due to having to extend the contract with Airwave until 2022. ESN was originally planned to be operable in 2017 & now it looks like it will be extended from the 2022 date to 2026!!
The new ESN system has been a disaster from before the contract was even signed. Several reputable companies pulled out of the bidding process before the contracts were even handed out & EE won simply because they were the last man standing. The ESN start date has been pushed back again & again & a few years ago it was known that the radio system did not work in many places, including inside some Police stations!!
Airwave is an encoded Tetra service, meaning it is a trunked, multi channel system & an old & now widely used in business radio mode. Currently the Emergency Services are trying to move away from Terta, as Airwave, is an overpriced & badly implemented service. The so called new system, the one that should have come into service several years ago now, is based upon mobile phones, so far more secure & much much cheaper & also a more robust system.
The 7/7 London Bombing response is known to have been badly hampered by Airwave. In part, because too many of the recommendations made during the investigation into the 1987 Kings Cross fire had not been implemented.
The Airwave Tetra system although encoded was broken well over 10 years ago by a Dutch University & thus many people have been able to listen in for a lot of years. And it is not just the encoding that has failed, as Tetra should be on multiple channels & every conversation should thus be constantly hopping channel. But the Airwave system uses just a few channels & it is thus wide open now the encryption is broken.
A few years ago, they tried to sell Airwave to the Israelis. With a few Israeli specialists coming to London on a Airwave funded weekend. The system was so bad the Israelis returned home on the Saturday!!
When I said above many are able to listen in to Airwave. I don’t just high tech individuals, but also radio enthusiasts. With the software enabling individuals to listen in, doing the rounds for several years now.
