Most fire services use Airwave for short data messaging to truck mounted MDTs, with ESN on the far horizon there has been a move to commercial sims for 4g data but keeping Airwave as the critical bearer for mobilising messages.
Incident comms is all UHF handheld radios with some already moved to digital and others that have bought dual mode analog/digital for cross border compatibility.
ESN data is now a thing, trials have been done in Durham & Darlington and Dorset & Wiltshire for a couple of different use cases. Home office are pushing early adopters now to actually start using it for what it is intended to do.
It is loads of extra work for already stretched people and budgets, there is transition funding available to support the work, but it needs to be claimed and justified - more work.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
