Britain's £2bn Emergency Services Network stalled as Motorola profited from both networks

In August 2015 the Home Office launched the Emergency Services Network, a 4G service to replace the 2000-vintage Airwave radio system used by every police force, fire service and ambulance trust in Britain. It signed EE for priority access to its mobile network and Motorola Solutions for critical push-to-talk software, and promised the new network would save taxpayers 'well over £1bn over the next 15 years', with Airwave replacement starting from 2017.

Three months after the contracts, Motorola bought Airwave itself — the incumbent it was being paid to displace. The National Audit Office rated the programme high risk in 2016, citing the commercial approach and an untried technology timetable. A 2018 'mindset reset' added £1bn in costs and two more years; by 2019 the NAO warned ESN was running three years late and £3bn over budget. In June 2022 the Home Office's own technology chief told MPs each extra year on the legacy estate cost about £550 million.

The conflict became formal: in October 2021 the Competition and Markets Authority opened an investigation into Motorola's dual role, saying the company 'has an incentive to delay or shape the roll-out of the ESN to its advantage' because it profits from operating Airwave. Police forces were still spending tens of millions of pounds on TETRA radios that had been scheduled for obsolescence in 2019.

By March 2023 the NAO counted roughly £2bn spent with 'a long way' still to go before a functioning network existed. In December 2022 the Home Office had agreed to end Motorola's ESN involvement early — paying for software it will never use — and in 2024 the incoming government handed user services to IBM, a decade after the original go-live date.

£2bn spent on ESN with no working replacement; Airwave delays cost about £550m a year; NAO warned of a £3bn overrun

One company sat on both sides of the transition: Motorola built ESN's core software while collecting Airwave's running revenue, so delay paid twice.

The timetable followed contract expiries, not engineering reality; the NAO found the approach had never been used at national scale anywhere else.

Users had no incentive to move: Airwave worked, so every slip transferred cost to the taxpayer rather than the supplier.

Oversight flagged the conflict in 2016, but the 2018 reset meant to fix the programme instead added £1bn and two more years.

Never let the incumbent of the system you are replacing build its successor. Motorola's dual role meant every year of delay padded its Airwave profits — audit incentives, not just milestones.

The Home Office had written to the CMA in 2021 complaining of Airwave's 'excessive profits', and the regulator's investigation into Motorola's Airwave pricing ran on separately. Motorola wrote off some of its own ESN investment when it exited. IBM was named user services supplier in 2024, with EE awarded the network layer, as the government committed again to shutting Airwave — more than a decade past its original obsolescence date.