H
eadlines about the lack of a Police radio system have made the newspapers in recent months. Police reportedly refused to enter the London Stadium over a long running argument of who would pay to upgrade the Airwave system within the stadium.
We were first told the system would be upgraded by the Arsenal home game in November then recently we have been told that has been extended to February 2017.
However the Airwave systems is obsolete technology and will soon be retired and completely phased out by 2020 so any investment in boosting Airwave will be very short lived. Mobile company EE (now part of BT) won a £1.2bn contract to rollout a new Emergency services radio system by mid-2017. The Airwave was originally launched in 2000 by O2 who later sold it but it currently costs taxpayer £450m per year to run. The new EE Emergency Services Network ESN will be based on industry standard mobile 4G technology and will cost far less to run. It does beg the question why the stadium owners E20 Stadium LLP are bothering to upgrade the Airwave system in the London Stadium at all as the replacement is so close to rollout.
Despite claims that the Police Airwave radio will not work in the stadium ClaretandHugh have been told they are just three small dead spots within the whole 66,000 seater stadium. One of these is the West Ham board room which hopefully won’t see too much crime and disorder, another is in a lift shaft which leaves just one small operational area where radios will not get a signal.
As we know Police had no problems in entering the stadium for the recent Stoke City game so as taxpayers we have to ask whether the upgrade to the soon to be obsolete Airwave system in February is a good use of taxpayers money.
But if there are only a few dead spots why bother? It is obsolete technology that will be dead within 3 years, who cares if Police radios don’t work in the West Ham board room.
This has more to do with politics than a real technical problem for the police.
BTW
I read this and checked the future for the 4G emergency coverage and it does not look like it is in plan yet. So resolving the Airwave solution is the way to go, especially as the 4G solution is 3 years away
If that is the case, definitely it is a waste of money. Might aswell wait until 2020 when the EE platform has ironed out any faults and is an established solution.