It was recently suggested that the UK's Emergency Services Network (ESN) had encountered so many difficulties along the way in part because of one simple fact: it was ahead of its time. At least, that was the suggestion of Simon Ricketts, a senior technology adviser and chair of the Independent Technical Assurance Panel at the Home Office, during a recent hearing before the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

Meg Hillier, the chair of PAC, noted that the idea of the ESN was born after the London bombings on July 7, 2005 because problems were identified with the old TETRA-based Airwave system, "which did not work in some circumstances. That was part of the reason for introducing the new system. To date, it has cost around £2 billion [US$2.5 billion]."

The aim was to build a system based on new mobile broadband technologies, namely LTE, using the 4G network that was under construction by BT-owned mobile operator EE. Certainly, one of the concerns raised when the idea of an LTE-based ESN was first mooted was that the technology was very new and therefore untested. Indeed, it wasn't until around 2013 that work was underway in Release 12 of 3GPP LTE standards to enhance LTE to meet public safety application requirements. Further progress on mission-critical push-to-talk (MC-PTT) and other features was then scheduled for Release 13, and further progress has been made since.

Figure 1: Specialized public safety networks are appearing in various countries.
(Source: B Christopher/Alamy Stock Photo)

As Ricketts commented during the PAC hearing in April 2023, although ESN has been beset by delay and is now well over budget, "broadband-based cellular networks is the right technology – 4G, 5G, 6G. There isn't really another game in town."

"Standards have moved on. Releases 13, 14 and 15 … which govern this network – are here," Ricketts added. He further observed that after the UK completed an international review of seven other European countries, the US and South Korea, it concluded that "everyone is now starting to move in this general broadband direction."

The 3GPP also noted that early leadership in applying LTE to public safety applications came from the USA while other markets were still focused on dedicated public safety systems based on standards such as TETRA. Today, multiple countries are now pursuing public safety networks based on LTE and eventually 5G.

Much to the envy of the UK, some markets such as France look to be making much faster progress, in part because standards have moved on, more vendors are getting involved, and the technology is increasingly being put through its paces.

Building a head of steam

According to a December 2022 report from SNS Telecom & IT, 3GPP-compliant public safety networks are eventually expected to be in a position to fully replace legacy land mobile radio (LMR) systems by the mid-to-late 2020s. The research company also estimated that annual investments in public safety LTE and 5G infrastructure would reach nearly $1.6 billion by the end of 2022, and predicted a further increase to $2.3 billion by the end of 2025.

In June 2021, Allied Market Research valued the global public safety LTE market at $12 billion in 2020 and said it is projected to reach $70.44 billion by 2028.

France is building the Réseau Radio du Futur (RRF), the next-generation communication system for public safety services that is scheduled to be up and running in time for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. Notably, RRF is expected to be fully in line with the European BroadWay-BroadNet project, an EU-funded project for the next generation of critical communications in Europe. In October 2022, France's Ministry of Interior awarded contracts to Orange, Bouygues Telecom, Airbus, Capgemini and Atos with a total budget of about €700 million ($769 million).

As noted above, the US took an early lead with the high-profile FirstNet (First Responder Network), a government agency charged with offering nationwide wireless services to public safety users. AT&T began offering services to first responders under a partnership with FirstNet about six years ago. The company recently announced it finished its buildout of FirstNet's Band 14 700MHz network. Verizon, meanwhile, has long enjoyed a commanding leadership position in the market for first responders. In 2021, the company put those offerings under its Frontline brand.

Elsewhere, Samsung collaborated with SK Telecom and KT to build South Korea's Safe-Net (National Disaster Safety Communications Network), which was completed in 2021. SNS Telecom & IT also singled out other national-level programs that are moving from field trials to wider-scale deployments, most notably Spain's SIRDEE mission-critical broadband network, Finland's VIRVE 2.0 broadband service, Sweden's Rakel G2 secure broadband system and Hungary's EDR 2.0/3.0 broadband network.

"Nationwide initiatives in the pre-operational phase include but are not limited to Switzerland's MSK (Secure Mobile Broadband Communications) system, Norway's NGN (Next-Generation Nødnett), Germany's planned hybrid broadband network for BOS (German Public Safety Organizations), Japan's PS-LTE (Public Safety LTE) project, Australia's PSMB (Public Safety Mobile Broadband) program and Canada's national PSBN (Public Safety Broadband Network)," the research company added.

The momentum is certainly growing, but as the ESN experience shows, LTE and 5G-based public safety networks are complicated, with myriad requirements to fulfil.

SNS highlights certain significant challenges, including the lack of a device-to-device (D2D) communications capability. "Another barrier impeding the market is the non-availability of cost-optimized COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) RAN equipment and terminals that support operation in certain frequency bands such as Band 68 (698-703 MHz / 753-758 MHz), which has been allocated for PPDR (Public Protection & Disaster Relief) broadband systems in multiple European countries," the research firm observes.

As for the UK's ESN, it's evident that multiple challenges still lie ahead. Originally scheduled to go live in 2019, the project has now been delayed to 2026. However, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) recently suggested that the ESN may not be up and running until 2029.

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— Anne Morris, contributing editor, special to Light Reading