ESN
Frontline preparation
for ESN: kicked into
the long grass?
34
www.criticalcomms.com October 2019
How are UK public safety
organisations getting those on
the front line ready for the move
from Airwave to the Emergency
Services Network (ESN)?
at continues to be one of the big questions
for us going forward, and it’s something which
is being accomplished in stages across the
course of the programme. A crucial element
will come within the training carried out once
we roll out ESN Prime ie, mission-critical
push-to-talk.
It sounds bizarre, but as much as anything
else there will likely be a psychological process
to go through when it comes to the move
to Android. A colleague and I were at a
conference recently and passed around some
of the ESN devices, with an earlier version of
the applications on them. One of the pieces
of feedback we got was that people who’d
only ever used iOS were clearly going to need
the opportunity to get up to speed with a
di erentplatform.
At the same time, there will also clearly
be a lot of complimentary – also incredibly
complex – change processes which will need
to occur from an operational perspective. at
includes upgrading control rooms, tting out
vehicles, and retraining tactical advisors to
manage ESN rather than Airwave coverage
duringincidents.
Will preparation for ESN be folded
into the roll-out of smart devices
already being undertaken by
individual emergency services
organisations via speci c
mobile network operator (MNO)
contracts?
It will be linked into that certainly, depending
on the service in question. Organisations will
have already undergone the business analysis
process to see what operational bene ts can be
derived from being able to send imagery, text
messages and so on. And some
clearly have already rolled out non-
ESN smart devices to their people.
Historically speaking, we haven’t
had the opportunity to incorporate
this kind of data-based functionality
in the eld, so processes and policies
need to be developed in conjunction with it. At
the same time, we also need to look at the ability
to capture data in relation to it potentially being
used as evidence.
How is that preparation being
supported at a structural level
across organisations, as well as
from the centre?
From a national perspective we have the
di erent regional ESN teams, through which
the emergency services organisations are
co-ordinating across particular geographical
areas. At the same time, within each user
organisation there will be a programme manager
responsible for the changeover. ere are
transition plans in place at the highest level in
terms of getting the project deployed.
How much of a priority for
organisations is the changeover
to ESN, given the delays which
have plagued the programme so
far? Are some of them kicking it
into the long grass?
Again, that will depend on the organisation.
At the moment, however, I would anticipate
that the ESN discussion has probably not
penetrated much further than the project teams
and the key stakeholders who are involved in
thechangeover.
at will change over time, particularly as
we develop greater con dence in the dates on
which the technology will become available.
As you indicate, the programme is currently
emerging from a reset, but I anticipate that
we’ll soon be in a much better position to move
MCX migration
UK Fire and Rescue Service (FRS) ESN senior user and business
change lead Ian Taylor speaks to Philip Mason about the progress
being made by emergency services when it comes to preparing
their people for the move to broadband
things forward. All the components are now
coming together, and I think we’ll be able to
start the ‘warming up’ process as of next year.
Going back to the technology
itself, what other operational
bene ts do you anticipate
from broadband? The recent
BAPCO NG999 event raised
some interesting questions
about the public’s use of nonvoice
means of contacting the
emergencyservices…
Again, I think it’s an interesting, potentially
incredibly bene cial development, particularly
with the majority of the world becoming
increasingly ‘application based’ going forwards.
I was at the Next Gen 999 event, and if we were
building the system from the ground up today it
would be impossible not to take account of the
technology. A picture paints a thousand words
after all.
At the same time, for me there is a risk that
if everyone has those alerting technologies
and applications, control rooms will end up
being swamped. You can see it happening in a
di erent way now – for instance, we can get 100
repeat calls about a car re on a motorway.
Ultimately, the challenge isn’t getting the
information so much as being intelligent with
what we do with it. For instance, is there a way
of using technology to do some of the sifting
that’s required? Could we use a version of facial
recognition to identify when the same incident
is being reported multiple times using video?
e technology has to be an asset rather than
a burden.
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