Emergency services digital radio mess

Taxpayers and hard-up fire-fighters are today asking why £1.6m has been wasted on digital radio projects for the emergency services which have had to be scrapped.

silicon.com revealed today how 44 UK fire brigades are claiming compensation for money they have spent on their own analogue radio replacement projects before the government announced it was tendering for one supplier to build a national digital radio network for the fire service.

There are two main issues here. The first is why it took the government so long to realise it needed a national strategy. The fire service has been facing ageing and obsolete equipment for some time yet only after the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 in the US did politicians realise that the police, fire and ambulance services all needed robust and interoperable digital communications systems that could cope with a major disaster.

Not surprisingly many fire brigades had already independently embarked on their own digital radio strategies, including Shropshire and Lancashire who have gone with O2's Airwave network. They will have to now hope that Airwave wins the national tender.

In the meantime, other fire brigades need to work out how to keep existing obsolete radio systems up and running and able to deal with emergencies until the end of 2007 when the new national radio network is due to be fully operational.

This brings us on to the second issue of how much of a genuine competition this procurement process is.

Airwave is heavily tipped by industry observers and fire service officials to win the contract, due in no large part to the fact the UK police are already in the middle of a national Airwave deployment that should be done by 2005.

It is hard to see how the government could then award a contract for the UK fire service to a different vendor, when its stated aim is a national radio system that works across the country's emergency services.

That is not to say the technology isn't sound and won't be an improvement on existing infrastructure or that Airwave isn’t the best solution, but as usual when it comes to the government the whole process looks like becoming a bit of an expensive muddle.

And if that wasn't enough there are other issues lurking. The Fire Brigades Union has already raised concerns about radio handsets that spark when activated – potentially a lethal situation for fire-fighters in the middle of a blaze – while some police forces are worried about the emissions from the handsets.

Then there are planning problems with Airwave, which for obvious reasons needs to provide 100 per cent coverage, coming up against fierce opposition from local residents in some areas of the country when it comes to the siting of the masts.

It certainly looks like the emergency services are going to need to hold on for a bumpy ride.