UK Emergency Services Network: Is there an alternative? (Part 2)

ESMCP: “Slow down, you move too fast.”

From Aesop’s cautionary tale about the tortoise and the hare; Icarus ignoring his father’s flying lessons; to the famous opening line of Simon & Garfunkel’s 54th Street Bridge song reproduced in the title of this article; there are many warnings from history about people, communities and nations who tried to move too quickly, or arrogantly believed that they knew the way better than anyone else, only to be brought back down to Earth by reality. Every process is embedded in a particular time, and requires sufficient time to be moulded into the right product or service. However impatient we may be to leave an imperfect past behind or reach the Promised Land, sometimes we just have to accept that we must learn to walk before we can run.

The critical communications world has always been a special world with special requirements. Users work in large groups to perform complex, often dangerous tasks and need instant, always available communications within their coverage areas. Mission-critical voice remains the key to operations because of the richness of information that can be conveyed in moments of heightened awareness by the human voice. Limited spectrum allocations and network resources have traditionally limited data transmission to low-bit-rate status messages and short data services, which, nevertheless allow a wide range of command and control, asset tracking and location services over secure, privately-controlled networks. The Critical Communications World has to get things right first time, every time, so it is inevitably and rightly, more risk averse in its choice of technology.

However, thanks to Steve Jobs and many, many others within the global mobile communications ecosystem, the general public, businesses and professional users are now demanding beautifully designed products and more advanced services dependent on greater connectivity, greater volumes and speed of transmission to improve customer satisfaction, business efficiency and situational awareness. Critical communications users are in danger of being left behind. As networks around the globe converge and standards become truly global requiring several thousand man-years to develop, it is no longer possible, nor in the Critical Communications World’s interests, to develop a completely separate broadband standard.

Therefore, while emergency services obviously need to maintain and upgrade their existing critical network for essential voice and data, they also need to gain access to new services currently only offered by commercial operators in order to increase operational efficiency, communicate more widely during an emergency situation and help them identify the critical services of the future. Authorities and the general public need to understand that we have entered a vital period of transition for emergency services where a complex set of solutions will need to be funded and managed to keep us safe in an uncertain world.

Critical communications joins the 3GPP party

In 2012, the TETRA + Critical Communications Association (TCCA) created a Critical Communications Broadband Group (CCBG) to look at the future of the industry, following the example set by the United States, where a nationwide public safety mobile broadband network is being developed by FirstNet, supported by institutions such as NIST and NPSTC. CCBG set up a number of sub-groups to look at user requirements, system architecture, business/strategic case and the all-important access to spectrum. The global standards body, 3GPP, responsible for the emerging LTE (Long Term Evolution) standard was identified by TCCA as the appropriate vehicle for developing the next generation of mission-critical technology.

The TETRA players felt it was time to reach out to the wider, global critical communications community that had deployed competing technologies such as Tetrapol, P25 and GSM-R, to find a common set of requirements and to unite around a common goal for the benefit of all professional users. Public safety, transport and utilities are all working on their unique future requirements, co-ordinating activities wherever possible to raise awareness of the importance of critical communications in an attempt to influence governments, suppliers and operators.

It was a pleasant surprise to see how the much larger 3GPP community accepted the niche critical communications community into the standardisation process, opening up a number of special work items within Release 12 such as group calls and device-to-device (TETRA’s direct mode operation), following some early work on high-powered radios that had been carried out in Release 11. Release 13 promises further enhancements that would bring mission-critical voice over LTE a step closer. An entirely new group has recently been set up within 3GPP - SA6 - dedicated exclusively to public safety requirements and chaired by Andrew Howell, a UK Home Office consultant, in an attempt to accelerate the public safety LTE standardisation process and avoid unnecessary delays to other 3GPP work items.

Global industry giants such as Huawei and Ericsson have also become more actively involved in critical communications in recent times as further industry consolidation looks likely during 2015 as the next round of public safety network upgrades must be funded. Ericsson and Motorola Solutions announced a partnership around 3 years ago to develop public safety LTE; Huawei has recently started working closely with the TETRA community, having launched its eLTE product range which is now gaining multiple customer references around the world. Huawei is also now an active TCCA member and recently won a TETRA Award for integrating eLTE with an existing TETRA solution for Nanjing Municipal Government in China. These are extremely valuable partnerships for the critical communications community as information is exchanged between the commercial and critical sectors, and increased investment enters the latter.

Parallel to the standardisation of mission-critical LTE, operators of European nationwide public safety networks in Finland, Belgium, Holland, Norway, Germany, Sweden – to name a few - are completing or refreshing their TETRA networks to guarantee users at least another 10 years of mission-critical voice and short data service while exploring exciting new ways of incorporating new data and multimedia services into their portfolios.

The MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) model is becoming a popular choice for these operators as they integrate commercial mobile operators’ offerings into their own mission-critical operations so that their emergency services customers have access to broadband data in a trusted environment. For example, Finland’s VIRVE has developed a long-term 5-step approach to evolving its mission-critical network, preparing the way for many years of converged, fully integrated TETRA+LTE operations while also integrating other public services such as energy suppliers and railways within its scope of operations. These arrangements finance the continuation of valuable TETRA services while paving the way for the arrival of mission-critical LTE when the time is right.

Next generation critical communications will also require adequate spectrum to deliver timely, secure enhanced services. In early 2012, the United States Government signed off 2 x 10 MHz of prime spectrum for public safety in the valuable 700 MHz band, together with $7 billion of funding for the new entity, FirstNet, entrusted with the delivery of a new nationwide public safety broadband network. Canada, Australia, South Korea, Mexico – to name a few – have identified and assigned valuable spectrum for similar initiatives. Qatar has already built its own public safety LTE network with commercial LTE equipment in 800 MHz, while maintaining its existing TETRA network for critical communications. The number of Governments assigning spectrum for public safety use is likely to grow exponentially following this year’s World Radio Conference (WRC-15) held by ITU, the global body responsible for coordinating all spectrum allocations.

As part of ITU Region 1, Europe is preparing to assign the 700 MHz band to mobile communications at WRC-15, creating an opportunity for critical communications users to be accommodated within the band. A number of proposals are on the table for discussion, allowing national authorities to determine the best approach for their particular market within a harmonised European framework.

CEPT coordinates frequency management across 48 European countries and is working hard ahead of WRC-15. The working group FM49 dealing with PPDR (Public Protection & Disaster Relief) has recommended that public safety be included in 700 MHz plans, whereas some European administrations have shown an interest in the 400 MHz bands currently used by narrowband networks for broadband, dependent on further studies. The railway community has recently set up working group FM54 to look at the migration of existing GSM-R networks, and European utilities are also looking at spectrum requirements. Even if critical communications is included in the WRC-15 mix, it will be several years before spectrum can be cleared, assigned and used, so their existing networks will need to be maintained.

Public safety broadband standardisation will take time – lots of time

As can be seen from all the above, we are entering a highly critical stage of the standards process for mission-critical broadband communications. As we stand at the threshold of a brave new 5G world of innovative financial and business models, the Internet of Everything, automated transport, robotics, artificial intelligence, augmented reality and biotech, the complexity of so many interconnected processes with such far-reaching consequences for the whole of mankind, means that we need to take our time to get it right. All communications becomes critical in the digital era, so the rest of the world has to start listening to us, because we understand what mission-critical really means as we have decades of experience working away in the background, protecting critical national infrastructure and generating enormous social value for the rest of our societies and economies.

LTE itself is clearly not the end-game for mobile communications: just an important stepping stone to a future world that we can barely imagine at the moment, but that will undoubtedly arrive during the 2020s and 2030s and will surprise us just as much as the rise of the digital economy did from the early 1990s onwards. Whereas the first four mobile communications generations have lasted approximately a decade each, critical communications solutions tend to run on 20-30 year cycles or even longer. Vital sectors of our societies and economies such as emergency services, transport and utilities must make sure that they are not tied into another sub-optimal technology in the future. That is why most of them still rely on narrowband, extremely robust and resilient networks, quite simply because they work. Critical communications is a truly long-term game that cannot afford to be held captive by short-term thinking.

Whatever happens over the coming decades – centuries? - to ephemeral search engines, social media companies, applications developers or media consulting firms, our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will still require basic public services: a safe environment to work and play; some form of safe, clean, affordable mobility service; clean drinking water, electricity and waste disposal. We can either take the time now to get this right and develop new economic models for the nascent digital age, or we can muddle along with the current inefficient, unfair system of allocating resources and distributing wealth that is a legacy of a bygone age of centralised nation states, slow-moving industries and large corporations, where hierarchical structures were the only viable option to maintain law order and generate value.

3GPP has done a fantastic job of coordinating the world’s premier mobile suppliers and operators to develop solutions that will enhance the lives of billions of people in developed and emerging markets in unimaginable ways. The Smartphone revolution took everyone by surprise during the mid-2000s, leading to a capacity crunch that had to be solved quickly by global operators as data usage sky-rocketed. Releases 8 and 9 – the beginning of the LTE standard - were developed quickly without considering voice. Most mobile operators still use their 2G and 3G networks to deliver voice calls. A decade-old technology, IMS has been resurrected to save the day as the basis of a new VoLTE standard, which introduces its own levels of complexity into legacy and brand-new mobile broadband offerings. Developing mission-critical voice during Release 13 and adding additional mission-critical functionality and encryption/security features will just add to the complexity. A stable, global, fully interoperable, ultra-low-latency, high quality solution will eventually emerge, but this will take time – a lot of time.

Therefore, it is highly unlikely, whatever the mobile industry claims, that affordable terminals incorporating all public safety LTE features, particularly mission-critical voice, will be available for emergency services and other critical communications users before 2022. Fortunately, this is the likely date for widespread deployment of public safety LTE compatible networks across the 700 MHz bands on a global scale. Early versions of the technology will be brought to market running lower quality pre-standards solutions with a certain amount of bugs that need to be eliminated. This is a perfectly normal state of affairs within the commercial mobile industry: increased complexity means that a solution to one problem tends to create another problem to be solved somewhere else. Time and money eventually fix the problem. However, this is totally unacceptable for critical communications users who will rightly hang on to their existing solutions for fall-back, emergency communications, using LTE as their secondary device.

What is the UK Government’s real agenda?

I have very clearly expressed my opinions about the UK Emergency Services Network procurement process in my earlier blog posts, so I will not repeat them here. Having explained what is happening in other markets, where countless options and viable alternatives are available that appear to be much more sensible and cautious; having shown how much activity and momentum has been built up within the critical communications space over the past 3 years; and having demonstrated how much urgent need there is for coordination at an international level on such vital matters, one might genuinely ask:  what on earth is the UK Government up to with emergency services communications?

Why is the UK Government in such a hurry to award the new contract?

Why is it taking so many risks with public safety?

Is this process really all just about saving taxpayers’ money?

Is this simply about replacing one bad contract signed by the previous government with another equally bad contract from this government that ties the hands of the next government?

In these times of Open Government and Open Democracy, can we allow blind ideology to cloud such important decisions for the future of our country? Can we allow so much power to be concentrated in the hands of so few people? Why the secrecy? Why the lack of transparency? Why the total lack of debate and apparent apathy and acceptance that there is no other way? So many questions and apparently no answers until the deal is done – until it is too late.

The continued privatisation of public services and the expropriation and exploitation of locally-generated social value by global capital reflects the current dominant ideology of Western civilisation that is hard to question openly because it has become so engrained in our collective consciousness that we no longer believe that we can do anything about it. In a virtual, digital global economy where economies of scale and zero marginal costs allow first-move advantage global players to accumulate hundreds of billions of dollars that can flow where taxes are lower and exert enormous pressure on nation-states, the unchecked relentless quest for ever greater economic value is crowding out the enormous good will and social value that can only be created locally by the vast majority of the world’s population, struggling to remain active participants in the global economy.

If Governments are captured by these powerful economic interests, then we are in serious trouble. The struggle of critical communications to fund its valuable public service therefore reflects a wider struggle of society in the digital age to develop a better, fairer system. Many of us feel that something is wrong, that we need to slow down and reflect on where we are going. We still believe in technology as a vehicle of massive change for the better, but we must never take progress for granted.

Of course, we need to modernise our emergency services network; of course, we need to incorporate new technologies and new practices in order to connect with and better serve an increasingly connected, informed & sophisticated public. But placing artificial, unrealistic deadlines on such a complex process to satisfy the political cycle or to reduce short-term costs while increasing the risk of astronomical long-term costs and damage to our society and economy – however small these astronomical costs might be – does not seem to me to be the kind of decision that competent, well-informed governments should make.

Perhaps the one saving grace of the current ESMCP process is that the new contracts will be up for renewal after 5-7 years, whereas the previous contract signed in 2000 tied the UK Government into higher prices than the rest of Europe for 15-20 years. This means that new options will be available for a future Government to re-assess the arrangements put in place by ESMCP around 2021-22, precisely when a fully standardised next-generation public safety solution should be available. However, it is therefore hard to imagine one of the two remaining mobile network operators signing a strict, legally binding agreement guaranteeing at least the same level of service or higher as the existing Airwave solution, knowing that it will probably take 5 more years to build up such a service and load all the emergency services customers on to the new network, only then to run the risk of losing out in a new competitive process before its shareholders begin to see a return on their investment.

There is a level of complexity in the relationship between the Government – and the emergency services users and public that they represent - and the successful bidders for ESN lots (especially Lot 3) that requires all the bidders to include at least one of the world’s finest game theorists and conflict strategists in their team. If the UK Government is unable or unwilling to negotiate the best possible deal for emergency services personnel and the UK population, then maybe a future Government, with better advice and a longer-term approach to social and economic development, will be able to do a better job.

Time to bid farewell to our Island mentality?

Unfortunately for some - thankfully for the rest of us - neither island mentalities nor misguided superiority complexes are any longer valuable attributes in a globalised world, so we must engage openly and sincerely with our European and global colleagues to develop a global public safety and security strategy. This strategy necessarily includes finding the most appropriate models for funding and building next generation critical communications networks. Our 20th century mental models of reality will no longer suffice in a 21st century world where the younger generations are demanding open, transparent, social value-enhancing public services that will form the foundation of the digital society & economy.

As we are fortunate enough as individuals to become financially more secure - but also as the world in general becomes less secure, more complex and uncertain - we must give back a part of our personal wealth to fund the common good, and this includes providing our emergency services with the right tools, however much it costs. In a world of plenty and with so much talent coming out of our schools and universities with the desire to build a new, better future, the UK Government’s continued focus on austerity is a lame excuse for not investing in critical national infrastructure which will provide growing rates of social and economic return for several decades to come.

Throughout history, civilisations that failed to protect the totality of their citizens and offer them a reasonable quality of life have become unstable, and eventually unsustainable. Unfortunately for us, we are the first truly global civilisation, so the consequences of making bad decisions will be catastrophic. Our virtual, digital world will not be able to function without a real, physical, human world underpinning and sustaining it.

In an ever faster world powered by the Internet of Things, where time will be measured in nano-seconds by ultra-precise technology, I will still prefer to be surrounded by critical communications tortoises steadily and relentlessly working away to create a better life for the many; rather than be subjugated to a minority of reckless, arrogant profit-maximising hares – or lemmings – jumping over each other and finding ever more creative ways of deflecting blame and responsibility for financial crises, as they head towards the proverbial cliff positioned just over the horizon of our future possibilities - without a life-jacket – taking all of us down to the bottom of the ocean with them.

To be continued…