Re: Shambolic
Add to that coverage is till pathetic - if you cannot use a EE cellphone on 4G somewhere, this system won't work.
It's not just coverage; it's also capacity - the capacity to handle normal "civil" traffic while still handling a potentially high emergency services demand in the event of a major incident.
They have not started the aircraft (helicopter) coverage part. This was hard enough in TETRA as an aircraft has line of sight to too many base stations. My suspicion is that it will require a new overlay network, not costed yet.
It was a problem with TETRA, but IIRC the matter was resolved in software by forcing airborne terminals to ignore the majority of fixed sites (or timeslots within sites) and vice versa.
I've commented previously about politicians and technology not mixing well (if at all) but in this case the civil service is so heavily involved (as was bound to be the case) that there is almost no hope.
What became Airwave spent a long time in development (as PSRCP if memory serves) back in the mid to late 90s with proper proof of concept trials and all the rest of it before any major contracts being placed. Even then some promised caabilities never materialised because they were too demanding of time and bandwidth and were thus incompatible with ordinary speech traffic. Sales triumphing over engineering realities once again...
I suspect that in the case of ESN engineering realities were firmly locked out of any discussions so that only Sales were involved, with the consequences being all too predictable. As far as I can see contracts were awarded without anyone being required to demonstrate a pilot system or equipment working, and the outcome is that with a lot of time having passed and a lot of money spent we are no closer to having a working system rolling out than we were several years ago.
One thing ought to emerge at the end of it; a classic object lesson in failed procurement that can be studied in minute detail without any significant chance of the same blunders being avoided on some future project.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
