UK imposes price cap on Motorola's radio network for emergency services

[doug_dickinson]

You mean, like in the United States?:

OneVoice Network Trunking System, Various, Multi-State

OneVoice Network Trunking System Profile

www.radioreference.com

That is a commercial system for businesses to subscribe to for their internal communications. THere are many. Very few large agencies have privately controlled radio systems (i.e. State of Florida). Most own and operate their own or in conjunction with other nearby agencies. Florida built a statewide system owned and operated by Harris for state agencies and some counties paid to be subscribers also. The replacement system was awarded to Motorola from what I understand. Lets see how that goes..

 

[Napalm]

Our Home Office ran the system until the Conservative Government decided that many critical services would be sold off to private companies. Without being political, we have communications by telephone having been private for years. Railways have been brought under national control and then sold off again because it was awful. Private companies providing Government services is normal here. Even our prisons have been sold off to profit making organisations. British Steel, British Gas, British Steel and loads more are not Government controlled. Our Royal Air Force use planes belonging to private companies. Many people remember nationalised industry as inefficient and unresponsive. Now we have shareholders first. Neither system is good, but as it splits our two main political parties, that's what we vote on. We used to have a nationalised Lifeboat service, well, sort of nationalised - one big organisation not quite in Government control, but we now have private ones too - so that's following US practice.

What happened to the RNLI? I haven't been back to the UK since 2017.

 

[paulears]

I'm on the east coast - Norfolk and Suffolk, and while we still have RNLI at Lowestoft, Southwold and Cromer, we have a couple of totally independent stations, with funding via charity status and donations. Caister, for example, left the RNLI many years back when the RNLI decided they were not needed - coverage from North and South being sufficient. The fact they'd been in existence over 100 years, and were busy, meant little. So their big lifeboat was bought by Bernard Matthews - the Turkey millionaire and the small inshore boat by comedian Jim Davidson. The big one is now life expired and they have just had a brand new one. I've supplied radio gear to all of these, and guess who is the slowest at paying the bills? yep - Good old RNLI. The RNLI do want to do good local service. no question. The problem seems to be the RNLI infrastructure - NOT the local crews. My experience with the actual local people is still great. For a volunteer organisation they work well.

 

[Napalm]

I'm on the east coast - Norfolk and Suffolk, and while we still have RNLI at Lowestoft, Southwold and Cromer, we have a couple of totally independent stations, with funding via charity status and donations. Caister, for example, left the RNLI many years back when the RNLI decided they were not needed - coverage from North and South being sufficient. The fact they'd been in existence over 100 years, and were busy, meant little. So their big lifeboat was bought by Bernard Matthews - the Turkey millionaire and the small inshore boat by comedian Jim Davidson. The big one is now life expired and they have just had a brand new one. I've supplied radio gear to all of these, and guess who is the slowest at paying the bills? yep - Good old RNLI. The RNLI do want to do good local service. no question. The problem seems to be the RNLI infrastructure - NOT the local crews. My experience with the actual local people is still great. For a volunteer organisation they work well.

Thanks for that. The lifeboat crews are a national treasure. I'm glad they stepped up to run them privately. The RNLI always resisted government funding to stay independent but... eh.

Anyway this is off topic and an old thread, sorry Mike.

 

[paulears]

Not really sure if it's news, but my brother in law, who was looking after two Police Forces move to the new replacement for UK airwave has now retired, before the new system has even started. He was overseeing comms for the two counties and after covid, carried on working from home. he went in one day to see his office had been closed, and given to a different department, so Airwave lookalike being around for a long time yet!