Home Office scraps plans to extend Emergency Services Network

Poor mobile coverage will be rectified by refreshing existing ESN contract, with no need for an extension to mobile services contract

The Home Office is scrapping plans for a national extension to mobile services to improve areas with a poor mobile signal because it believes that these will be covered by commitments by the four big mobile network operators - BT's EE, Vodafone, O2 and Three.

Initially, areas of the UK with poor or non-existent mobile coverage that were not expected to be covered by the main Emergency Services Network (ESN) contract - or Lot 3 - were expected to be guaranteed signal by an extra "extension to mobile services" contract or Lot 4.

However, the Home Office claimed that the tenders for Lot 3 already offer "unexpected and significant improvements in poor signal areas", and this, it said, negated the need for a Lot 4 contract in its current format.

Mike Penning, minister for policing, criminal justice and victims at the Home Office, said that although the tender bids were still being evaluated, it was clear that competitions for contracts for the new ESN has resulted in offers by the mobile industry that were "significantly beyond our initial expectations".

"The quality of bids means the areas of the UK that would have remained covered by the Lot 4 ‘extension to mobile services' contract are now significantly smaller than we envisaged, therefore we do not need to proceed with the contract in its current form," he said.

The new network will add broadband capabilities that cannot be delivered by the existing Tetra system. The Tetra system enables voice and dispatch services, and supports several types of data communication. It also needs authentication to use, and has encrypted lines in order to protect against eavesdropping or interference.

The new network will go live in 2017 when current contracts expire. The Home Office believes that the ESN is expected to "enhance a commercial network to deliver broadband data services". The current service, Airwave, is run on a private mobile radio system.

On the commercial network, the emergency services will have priority over other users, negating the need for additional mobile radio spectrum. The Home Office believes coverage for the emergency services will, at the very least, match what is currently provided.

The ESN will provide services for the police, fire and rescue authorities, ambulance trusts, the National Crime Agency, British Transport Police, Ministry of Defence Police, Civil Nuclear Constabulary and the National Police Air Service. In addition, over 400 public-sector bodies may require access to the network.

The combined value of the four contracts (Lot 1 to 4) is estimated to be between £555m and £1.2bn.