Motorola appeal over £200M price cap for Airwave service rejected
- Reference: 1738580474
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/02/03/motorola_reaches_end_of_road/
- Source link:
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) put forward proposals for a price ceiling in [1]October 2022 , given that Motorola provides the existing Airwave network and had been set - until last month - to supply the delayed Emeregency Service Network (ESN) replacement system.
Excess profits on Motorola's Airwave estimated to be £1.3B [2]READ MORE
Airwave is currently used by 108 police, fire and ambulance services across England, Scotland and Wales to communicate between the field and control rooms.
The Court of Appeal (CoA) has once more unanimously dismissed Motorola's application for permission to appeal the decision by the CMA. The appeal claimed the CMA had made errors in assessing competition in the relevant market and in the profitability of the Airwave Network back in 2021.
Motorola had already appealed the CMA's decision on the same grounds with the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), a specialist judicial body that handles such cases, but that [3]challenge was dismissed at the start of 2024.
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This is now the end of the long-running saga, as Motorola cannot appeal the decision any higher than the CoA.
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In a statement, the CMA said its price cap will ensure the UK's emergency services pay a fair price for Airwave's services, reducing the cost by almost £200 million ($248 million) per year.
George Lusty, the CMA's Executive Director of Consumer Protection and Markets, hailed the decision by the CoA.
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"The CMA's investigations and legal decisions are carefully considered and evidence-led and we welcome today's decision by the Court of Appeal which endorses our reasoning in this case," Lusty said.
"Our investigation showed that Motorola had been charging emergency services in the UK £200 million a year more than they would if the market was working well. The Court's judgment today means that our price cap remains in place."
In January, a contract for the much delayed replacement for Airwave, known as the Emergency Services Network (ESN), was [8]awarded to IBM . Airwave is based on the TETRA (Terrestrial Trunked Radio) standard, while its successor was set to be based on 4G cellular technology.
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Back in 2015 Morotola won the contract to deliver the ESN, the company then proceeded to buy Airwave Solutions in February 2016, just months after getting the gig. This meant it had ownership of both the current system as well as being trusted with developing its replacement.
The CMA cleared that merger at the time as the Airwave service was scheduled, at that stage, to be replaced and decommissioned by the end of 2019. Yet due to project delays, Motorola's contract for Airwave to serve the emergency services was extended in 2020 for six years.
In 2021, the CMA started looking into whether the company was acting as a monopoly and [10]abusing its position by holding up work on the replacement project so that it could stretch out its income from Airwave for as long as possible. It was estimated that Motorola was on track for projected profits of £1.2 billion ($1.49 billion) for the extension period.
The CMA concluded that Motorola was able to earn "supernormal" profits from the prices it charged the Home Office, meaning profits over and above what would be expected in a well-functioning market.
The Home Office and Motorola agreed to terminate the contract for ESN in January 2023. As mentioned, IBM picked up the agreement last month, and is to be supported by tech supplied by [11]Ericsson and [12]Samsung .
[13]Government and the latest tech don't mix, says UK civil servant of £11B ESN mess
[14]Airwave a 'license to print money' on legacy blue-light comms contract
[15]UK emergency services take DIY approach amid 12-year wait for comms upgrade
[16]UK's Emergency Services Network unlikely to start operating until 2029
[17]£2B in UK taxpayer cash later, and still no Emergency Services Network
In response to the CoA's ruling, a Motorola SoIutions spokesperson told The Register : "While we continue to strongly disagree with the CMA's unprecedented decision, we are focused on moving forward and continuing to deliver this world-class emergency communications service for the UK's public safety users."
As we've said [18]previously , the history of the ESN project should serve as a lesson in how not to run public sector procurement. It was repeatedly overhauled and review of work undertaken delayed. Less than two years ago, the Home Office confirmed that some just under [19]£2 billion of taxpayer cash had been spent on ESN with nothing to show for that money.
Successive governments lack understanding of how to buy tech, a report by the [20]National Audit Office ventured last month , and we [21]suspect this problem won't be going away anytime soon . ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/17/cma_motorola_airwave/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/22/excess_profits_motorola_airwave/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/09/tribunal_sides_with_cma_in/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z6D2Mc-50EBNIS38RKsKXAAAAZg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z6D2Mc-50EBNIS38RKsKXAAAAZg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z6D2Mc-50EBNIS38RKsKXAAAAZg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z6D2Mc-50EBNIS38RKsKXAAAAZg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/17/ibm_esn_contract/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z6D2Mc-50EBNIS38RKsKXAAAAZg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/25/cma_motorola_solutions_esn_probe/
[11] https://www.ericsson.com/en/press-releases/3/2025/ericsson-partners-with-ibm-to-deliver-the-emergency-services-network
[12] https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-selected-to-provide-mission-critical-solutions-for-emergency-services-network
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/05/esn_home_offifce_committee/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/04/airwave_profits/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/28/uk_esn_alternatives/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/06/emergency_services_network_2029/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/09/esn_nao_report/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/06/emergency_services_network_2029/
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/09/esn_nao_report/
[20] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/16/nao_uk_government_tech/
[21] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/28/uk_govt_it_suppliers/
[22] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Our "leaders" and civil servants have no understanding of engineering and technology
Yup... but they do understand the concept of "brown envelopes"...
Re: Our "leaders" and civil servants have no understanding of engineering and technology
Where's the pressure to replace Airwave coming from? Presumably an element of it is emergency services leaders who think there's merit in higher bandwidth communication? What benefit (real or imagined) are emergency services leaders hoping to gain?
And is this all part of some broader idiot policy that intends to seize the low frequency spectrum for garbage like DTTV or DAB?
Re: Our "leaders" and civil servants have no understanding of engineering and technology
The main issue is that as Tetra system, push to talk is pretty much the only thing Airwave is good at.
If you want any appreciable amount of data you have to carry something else as well, or get a dual mode handset.
Generally the "something else" is bog standard LTE, which doesn't have any of the prioritisation / preemption that the ESN version is supposed to bring.
(A secondary issue is that Tetra is a niche technology, so the kit is really expensive. But by the time standard LTE kit has been bought through a government contract, I expect it will be a similar price.)
Re: Our "leaders" and civil servants have no understanding of engineering and technology
Please see my previous comments on ESN:
https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2023/07/14/pac_emergency_services_network/#c_4696722
ESN is the correct-ish choice as it gives a much richer experience to emergency services personnel eg multimedia (video + images + maps + files), location, encryption, video streaming etc. The main/only issue, when I was working on it, was the implementation was err, cr4p. The other issue is coverage but that is (easily) solvable by more base stations.
FWIW, my nephew was training to be a plod and was complaining about how flaky AirWave (aka Tetra) was. I said he'd be *begging* them to give back the AirWave handsets when ESN was rolled out.
Motorola
Should just pull out completely and say "fuck you".
The CMA had nothing to say about shovelling billions to DIdo Harding for a useless piece of shit system for covid. I don't wonder why.
Politicians and tech
"Successive governments lack understanding of how to buy tech"
Years ago some tosspot Tory MP was talking about giving lessons to schoolchildren about how to use a web browser. This chinless nobody actually thought this was something necessary.
There are too many lawyers and PPE+law graduates in parliament. They know how to waffle, but are basically useless if you broke down in the middle of a desert.
Trump that!
Well it's a £2 billion ($2.5 billion) ticket Keir can wave in Donald's face next time they meet.
I use to be really interested in the deployment of UKESN. It's dragged on so long now that I've given up.
Our "leaders" and civil servants have no understanding of engineering and technology
The fundamental issues is that our political leaders and most of the civil service have no idea when it comes to technology and engineering, and a disdain for those who do. The results is that the decision makers on engineering projects lack the ability to separate truth from sales BS, or to negotiable deliverable specifications. At best they are misled, at worse, in their ignorance they push for things that are just not viable.
With ESN, we have AirWave, as system incorporating from day-one specialist function (e.g. push-to-talk), using low frequencies to allow full coverage, and designed for very high availability, being "replaced" with a "service" built on top of a commercial phone system. The commercial system is designed to maximize profit from the infrastructure investment of mobile carriers, lacks push-to-talk (which is hard to retrofit), and uses high frequencies designed to maximize bandwidth at the expense of coverage.
Throwing money at the problem, and sticking their head in the sand, will not fix these fundamental issues, yet no-one will admit it is doomed.