Too true
Goldfrog, but there does seem to be a juggernaut of an engineering empire building a head of steam on the CASPIAN project, many of whom I detect have their own personal agendas and ideas of what the project should be, ATC just being seen as a minor player and an irritant in their aspirations. Of course, it is incumbent on ATC to specify the system functionality they need correctly in the first place, so removing the ability of anyone to give us something which is not suited or wanted for the ATC task. There's a lot of work gone in to that part of the project so far, but I'd be a fool to claim we have everything 100% baselined and cast iron, not least because the aviation world is constantly getting busier, methods of operations are changing and evolving, as is technology.
There are some very clever and innovative people in NATS Engineering who should be at the forefront of helping adapt the things in SACTA for the benefit of their ATC colleagues (and ultimately the pilots and passengers they serve). But there's also some who always want to reinvent the wheel and tamper too much with something simply because it 'wasn't invented here'. So turning our Commercial Off The Shelf procurement policy in to a joke and once again ensuring that everything we get is of gold plated Rolls Royce status, along with the resultant massive time and resource costs that entails, when what the customer (be that ATC or airlines) wants is something which is simple, does the job, is cost effective, and is reliable.
Gonzo
If it speaks OLDI, it is compatible. If not, then I see the options are that EFPS/SACTA is adapted accordingly, or EFPS is junked
