Motorola CEO Expects U.K’s Airwave to Continue ‘Many Years Beyond 2020’
13th Aug 2018
Motorola Solutions is still negotiating contracts for the Airwave TETRA network and the U.K. Emergency Services Network (ESN) broadband network with the U.K. Home Office and expects agreements by the end of the quarter, the company’s CEO said during its Aug. 2 financial results conference call.
“I think it’s worth noting we are now negotiating ESN and Airwave agreements in tandem,” said Greg Brown, Motorola Solutions chairman and CEO. “While terms and conditions are still fluid … I think Airwave will be in place many, many years beyond 2020. ESN is now looking to be more like a standards-based Kodiak solution, and I think both those developments are good for us.”
Brown said the negotiations include device refresh for next year because of the continued use of the Airwave network.
In June, U.K. Home Office and public-safety officials researched the Kodiak push-to-talk (PTT) solution for the country’s public-safety Long Term Evolution (LTE) network during a trip to the United States. The group is considering moving to the Kodiak technology rather than the previously planned Motorola WAVE 7000.
A report from the U.K. Home Office updating the parliamentary committee on the Emergency Services Network (ESN) timelines and budget — originally expected in January — was due at the end of July but had not been released at press time.
"The review has concluded, and a decision on the future of the program will be made shortly," a Home Office spokesman said. "We will announce the outcome in due course."
Brown also said the ESN will become more similar to the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) network in the United States.
“At the end of the day, the U.K. Home Office solution between those two [networks] will look more and more like FirstNet here in the States,” he said. “There’s a few ingredients in the blender, if you will, that we’ll take into consideration. There’s political, there’s practical and there’s financial and we’ll evaluate all those with the customer to ensure the best agreement for our company.”
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