Not truly a Rotorheads or NPAS matter as it relates to a foreign power and coast guard and air ambulances.
This morning the French announced that they are updating their emergency services communications system. If you will their replacement for their Airwave.The consortium led by Airbus and Capgemini was selected by the French Ministry of the Interior and Overseas territories for the role of Package 2 integrator for the Réseau Radio du Futur (RRF – radio network of the future), the secure and resilient broadband network for domestic security and emergency rescue forces. This pioneer project, led by France, is key to modernising domestic security forces.
The Réseau Radio du Futur will be a national, secure and high-speed (4G and 5G) priority mobile communication system, with a high level of resilience in order to guarantee the continuum of security and emergency rescue missions on a daily basis, including in the event of a crisis or major event. RRF intends to equip up to 400,000 users in the security and emergency rescue forces, such as the national gendarmerie, the national police force, firefighters and other civil security forces.
It will allow these users to benefit from many new data-centred services, such as video, in particular.
With the notification of the RRF construction contract to the selected manufacturers, the Ministry of the Interior began construction of the future network in September. The construction and then the tests of a first version of the RRF will extend over a period of 19 months. , making it possible to secure the technical robustness of the solution and its appropriation by future users. From 2024, the RRF will become the backbone of operational communications for security, emergency services and crisis management actors.
The race is on! A mere four years (barring problems I guess).
If they manage it, that will be four years before the UK ESN is in place (latest guess 2028) and of course ESN was supposed in place in 2017, five years ago.
I guess we can see blame being levelled at Truss and a long line of Home Secretary’s but I think it may be a bit closer to the coal face than that……