Emergency Services Communications: Resilience for the Twenty-First Centuryby Jennifer Cole and Edward Hawker

A Fire and Rescue hazmat officer on a multi-agency training exercise

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About the ResearchThe research project ‘Emergency Services Communications: Resilience for the Twenty-First Century’ was conducted between September 2013 and April 2014 by the Royal United Services Institute. The aim of the project was to provide evidence in support of British APCO’s call for Mission Critical Voice, as set out in the BAPCO positioning paper Requirements for Mission Critical Voice and Future Harmonised Spectrum for UK Public Safety, published in February 2014. This paper represents the final findings of that research.

This project was commissioned by BAPCO and has been supported by Airwave and two other sponsors who prefer to remain anonymous.

About RUSIThe Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) is an independent think tank engaged in cutting edgedefence and security research. A unique institution, founded in 1831 by the Duke of Wellington, RUSI embodies nearly two centuries of forward thinking, free discussion and careful reflection on defence and security matters.

For more information, see: www.rusi.org

About RUSI’s Resilience and Emergency Management ProgrammeRUSI’s Emergency Management Programme sits within the National Security and Resilience department, which studies the prevention of, response to, and recovery from man-made and natural disasters, including terrorist attacks, climate change impacts and hostile threats.

For more information, please visit: www.rusi.org/emergencymanagement

About British APCOBritish APCO is the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials. A non-profit organisation founded in June 1993, it provides a forum for professionals in the field of communications who are part of the emergency services.

Front and back covers courtesy of Airwave

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The views expressed in this paper are the authors’ own, and do not necessarily reflect those of RUSI, British APCO, Airwave Solutions Ltd or any other institutions with which the authors are associated.

Comments pertaining to this report are invited and should be forwarded to: Jennifer Cole, Senior Research Fellow, Resilience and Emergency Management, Royal United Services Institute, Whitehall, London, SW1A 2ET, United Kingdom, or via email to jenniferc@rusi.org

Published May 2014 by British APCO

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Reproduction without the express permission of British APCO and RUSI is prohibited.

Editor: Jennifer Cole

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Paper or electronic copies of this and other reports are available by contacting publications@rusi.org.

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ContentsGlossary 6

Executive Summary 8

Introduction 10

The Argument for Mission Critical Voice 16

Emergency Services Communications in Historical Context 22

Business as Usual? 27

Communications Science 32

When Communications Don’t Work 39

Conclusions and Recommendations 50

Annex 1: Key Organisations 51

Annex 2: Spectrum Harmonisation and Ownership 52

Annex 3: Networks 53

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Glossary3GPP Third Generation Partnership ProjectADL Airborne Data LinkAPCO Association of Public-Safety Communications OfficialsBAPCO British Association of Public-Safety Communications OfficialsBAPERN Boston Area Police Emergency Radio NetworkBAU Business as UsualBIS Department of Business, Innovation and SkillsBRT Brigade Reinforcement TeamCFOA Chief Fire Officers AssociationCFRA Chief Fire and Rescue AdviserCNI Critical National InfrastructureCO Cabinet OfficeCOBR Cabinet Office Briefing RoomCOTS Commercial Off-The-Shelf TechnologyDAB Digital Audio BroadcastingDCLG Department of Communities and Local GovernmentDefra Department of Environment, Food and Rural AffairsDH Department of HealthDii Defence Information InfrastructureDMO Direct Mode OperationDSM Defence Spectrum ManagementDSO Defence Spectrum OrganisationE&PSS Emergency and Public Safety ServicesEDGE Enhanced Data Rates for GSM EvolutionENISA European Union Agency for Network and Information SecurityEPO Emergency Planning OfficerEPSS Emergency and Public Safety ServicesESMCP Emergency Services Mobile Communications ProgrammeESN Emergency Services NetworkETSI European Telecommunications Standardisation InstituteEU European UnionGHz Giga HertzGIS Geographical Information SystemsGSM Global System for Mobile CommunicationsHITS High Integrity Telecommunications SystemHMT Her Majesty’s TreasuryHO Home OfficeHQ HeadquartersICT Information and Communications TechnologiesITT Invitation to TenderITU International Telecommunications UnionLEWP Law Enforcement Working Party LRF Local Resilience Forum

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LTE Long Term EvolutionMCD Mission Critical DataMCV Mission Critical VoiceMHz Mega HertzMoD Ministry of DefenceMoJ Ministry of JusticeMTPAS Mobile Telecommunication Privileged Access SchemeNATO North Atlantic Treaty OrganizationNCA National Crime AgencyNCAF National Coordination Advisory Framework (Fire and Rescue Services)NIST National Institute of Standards TechnologyNPIA National Policing Improvement AgencyNRAT National Resilience Assurance Team (Fire and Rescue Service)NRE National Resilience ExtranetNTIA National Telecommunications and Information AdministrationOGDs Other Government DepartmentsOMA Open Mobile AllianceOfcom Office of CommunicationsPJHQ Permanent Joint Headquarters (part of the MoD)PMR Professional Mobile RadioPPDR Public Protection and Disaster ReliefPSAPs Public Safety Answering Points PSRCP Public Safety Radio Communications ProjectPSSPG Public Safety Spectrum Policy GroupPSTN Public Switched Telephone NetworkPTT Push-to-TalkRF Radio FrequenciesRSPCA Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to AnimalsRSA Recognised Spectrum AccessRUSI Royal United Services Institute SCG Strategic Coordinating GroupSECRICOM Seamless Communication for Crisis ManagementSLAs Service Level AgreementsSG Scottish GovernmentSUR Spectrum Usage RightsTCCA TETRA and Critical Communications AssociationTEDS TETRA Enhanced Data ServiceTETRA Terrestrial Trunked RadioUHF Ultra High FrequencyUKSSC UK Spectrum Strategy GroupVHF Very High FrequencyVoIP Voice over Internet ProtocolWRC World Radiocommunication Conference

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Executive SummaryBetween 2016 and 2020, the current contracts between emergency services organisations in Great Britain and Airwave, the company that manages the shared communications network they use, will come to an end. An Invitation to Tender (ITT) for the replacement Emergency Services Network (ESN) will be issued by the Home Office in the second quarter of 2014, with preferred bidders due to be appointed, contracts awarded, and the services to commence between April 2015 and September 2016. The Airwave Network was the first tri-service interoperable communications net in the world: piloted in 2001, it was rolled out nationally across Great Britain between 2001 and 2005. Every emergency service in every region of Great Britain has been using the Airwave Network since the end of 2011.

The Future Communications Study that has informed this report was commissioned by BAPCO, supported by Airwave and two other sponsors who prefer to remain anonymous, and undertaken by the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies. It has aimed to address concerns amongst the BAPCO membership that the future ESN may compromise essential functionality, performance and service provided by the current Airwave Network for economic savings. In particular, there are concerns regarding the ability of an ESN to be run effectively over a commercial network shared with other users, rather than on a bespoke network created for, and used exclusively by, the Emergency and Public Safety Services (E&PSS) as the Airwave Network is. The efficacy of the emergency services must not be sacrificed in the drive for a cheaper solution.

RUSI has therefore taken an independent look at the options available for replacing or evolving the current Airwave Network. This report provides historical context to the use of communications by the emergency services and explains basic scientific principles behind the technology available, along with the advantages and disadvantages of potential ESN models: decisions need to be made with full understanding of their risks and consequences. This report hopes to help key stakeholders understand the cultural and political contexts, as well as the economic and scientific ones, that influence the use of modern communications technology.

Ownership of the NetworkThe debate surrounding the ESN has two main components: the extent to which such a network, or components of the network, is shared with commercial operators and secondly, what frequencies – or section of the electromagnetic spectrum – that network operates on (which may or may not be owned by the public sector regardless of who manages the network). There are a number of possible options for the ESN, ranging from a network run on Spectrum that is owned by the public sector and leased to the ESN network operator, with only E&PSS allowed to operate on those frequencies, to a network run across spectrum owned by the private sector, with the E&PSS renting time and space alongside other commercial users, with Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to ensure priority use in times of stress.

The study has shown that the most severe stresses on communications networks occur when there is physical damage to infrastructure across a significant portion of the network – due to flooding or storms for example – and when an unexpected major incident occurs at a large planned event where the networks are already operating above business as usual capacity.

In such instances, it is possible for commercial bearers to prioritise calls from certain users, and from pre-arranged numbers, or to switch off network access to some users (e.g. the public) while allowing others

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(e.g. the emergency services) to remain active, and for such ‘ruthless pre-emption’ to be embedded in the SLAs tied to the contract to operate the ESN. There are concerns, however, over whether such SLAs will be sufficiently strong enough to protect E&PSS users, who will constitute only around 2 per cent of a commercial operator’s customer base. Furthermore, experience of events such as the Boston Marathon bombings show that while commercial networks struggle to cope with such events, dedicated ESNs run on public sector spectrum are more likely to remain operational.

This operational functionality does not have to be 100 percent robust 100 percent of the time: some realism is needed that in extreme events, some functionality may be compromised. British APCO’s position is that any Public Protection and Disaster Relief (PPDR) network – meaning a network that can allow the police, fire service and other agencies involved in PPDR to operate effectively and save lives – must deliver both Mission Critical Voice (MCV) and Mission Critical Data (MCD) that is both resilient and secure during Business as Usual operations. In extreme situations, when all else fails, MCV – including the 4Cs of criticality, coverage, capacity and capability – must remain available even if MCD fails.

Expectations of Communications Technology The relationship between the technology available to the emergency services, and the technology available to the public has changed considerably over the past 20 years. Today, the average member of the public is likely to carry at least one, and more likely a number of mobile communication devices, including SmartPhones, tablets and laptop computers providing communications functions that were, in the past, available only to professionals. This does not mean that a typical SmartPhone can simply replace the professional devices required by a police officer or firefighter, however. The long public sector procurement processes, the length of contracts awarded to ensure the investment required to build an ESN is viable and the fast pace of technology all contribute to the challenges: communications technology has become ‘normalised’ within wider society, making it appear that commercial-off-the-shelf technology (COTS) will do the job, and that functionality available to the public should be available to professionals, risking political, media and public backlash if is not, but this is not necessarily the case.

The research behind this report shows that functionality that is highly desirable as a future option does not always prove to be as attractive as expected once it becomes available: different attitudes to the criticality of voice, videostreaming and the platforms though which they are delivered, recorded in two complementary studies conducted five years apart, illustrate that some functionality loses its previous attraction once it becomes more readily available and its genuine value can be tested. Others, which may appear to be more ‘old fashioned’ prove over time to be tried and tested, and much more essential than was earlier predicted. Niche capability, which may not be familiar to users (or even obvious that it is a part of the process), such as the maintenance of mobile base stations that can provide temporary coverage in remote locations, and the ability to communicate ‘off network’ in certain situations, must not be forgotten: there is a danger it may drop off the ends of a commercial contract, as perceptions of what is essential are strongly influenced by COTS technology ‘wants’ as much as ‘needs’. We must remain focused on genuine needs.

In conclusion, if there is a move towards a greater role for commercial bearers in the procurement of the new ESN, assured capacity and ruthless pre-emption for the E&PSS must be guaranteed in times of need. This has to be weighed against the commercial operators’ imperative to keep their customers happy (i.e. connected) and the confidence that Service Level Agreements will be honoured. RUSI supports BAPCO’s concerns over a future ESN run over commercial networks, and urges concern over taking this option without stringent SLAs that ensure assured capacity, ruthless pre-emption and a fall-back resilience capacity for Mission Critical Voice that may have to be maintained within the public sector.

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IntroductionBetween 2016 and 2020, the current contracts between emergency services organisations in Great Britain1 and Airwave, the company that manages the shared communications network used by the British Emergency and Public Safety Services (E&PSS)2 will come to an end. An Invitation to Tender (ITT) for the replacement Emergency Services Network will be issued by the Home Office in the second quarter of 20143 with preferred bidders due to be appointed, contracts awarded, and the services to commence between April 2015 and September 2016.

The current Airwave Network, which resulted from the Public Safety Radio Communications Project (PSRCP) at the turn of the century, was the first time that all three emergency services – the Police, Fire and Rescue, and Ambulance – had operated on the same shared communications network in Great Britain; before this, even different Police Force (and Fire and Ambulance) regions were operating on different systems. It was also the first tri-service interoperable communications net in the world. The Airwave Network was first piloted in 2001 and was rolled out nationally across Great Britain between 2001 and 2005; every emergency service in every region was using the Airwave Network by the end of 2011. The advantages of operating on a shared network, and some of the challenges involved in developing and operating it, have previously been explored by RUSI in two separate reports: Communications Inter-Operability in a Crisis (Bell and Cox, 2006)4 and Interoperability in a Crisis 2: Human Factors and Operational Processes (Cole, 2010)5.

The Future Communications Study that has informed this report is a joint venture between the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies and British APCO, supported by Airwave and two other sponsors who prefer to remain anonymous, aimed at addressing concerns amongst the BAPCO membership that the replacement/evolution of the current Emergency Services Network (ESN) may compromise essential functionality, performance and service for economic savings. Such concerns are hardly surprising considering that the Home Office-led Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme (ESMCP)6 lists one of its aims as a ‘cost-effective (cheaper)’ network – alongside an ‘operationally efficient (better)’ and ‘demand-led (smarter)’ service – on its website and in its literature.

In particular, there are concerns regarding the ability of an ESN to be run effectively over a commercial network shared with other users, rather than on a bespoke network created for, and used exclusively by, the E&PSS (as the Airwave Network is). While the current economic situation and drive for austerity cannot be ignored, the efficacy of the emergency services must not be sacrificed in the drive for a cheaper solution.

This study takes an independent look at the options available for replacing or evolving the current Airwave Network and provides historical context to the use of communications by the emergency services. Perhaps more importantly, it explains the basic scientific principles behind the technology available and the advantages and disadvantages of the available options. It is not meant to repeat, nor critique, the work of the ESMCP, but rather to help key stakeholders involved in making the decisions understand the cultural and political context, as well as the economic and scientific benefits that can be provided by modern communications technology. Decisions need to be made with full understanding of their risks and the potential consequences.

1 A separate network operates in Northern Ireland2 Emergency and Public Safety Services include the emergency services – Police, Fire and Rescue and Ambulance – other Category 1 and 2 responders asdefinedbytheCivilContingenciesAct2004,andtheorganisationsthatsupportthem3Seehttps://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-emergency-services-mobile-communications-programme,lastaccessed20March20144Seehttps://www.rusi.org/publications/whitehallreports/ref:O459D3C8297AAE/,lastaccessed21March20145Seehttps://www.rusi.org/publications/occasionalpapers/ref:O4C2CC38D725EE/,lastaccessed21March20146Seehttps://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-emergency-services-mobile-communications-programme,lastaccessed21March2014

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Understanding the ScienceA relatively lengthy chapter on communications science (see page 32) has been included due to the high number of individuals consulted during the course of this study who either did not feel qualified to fully engage with the debate, or who argued that their point of view was not shared by others because those others did not fully understand what was being discussed. It is certainly the case, in RUSI’s opinion, that understanding the issues involved today requires a greater knowledge of communications science (including the science of the electromagnetic spectrum and of how mobile telephony and data services make use of it) than was the case when the Airwave Network was developed at the turn of the century. This is partly due to the success of a single national network, as individual forces no longer need to employ communications managers who fully understand the science.

A strong technical understanding is particularly relevant with regard to decisions involving the potential use of existing technology (referred to as commercial off-the-shelf, or ‘COTS’ technology) in conjunction with, or entirely instead of, bespoke solutions for the E&PSS. The better understanding all stakeholders have of the science underpinning the available technology, the more likely they will be to make the most appropriate decision.

Larger planned events such as The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games require careful planning to enable communications to remain optimal

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Future Ownership of SpectrumThe debate surrounding the ESN has two components. The first component is the extent to which such a network, or components of the network, is shared with commercial operators. The second is what frequencies – or section of the electromagnetic spectrum, which will be explained more fully in Chapter IV – that network operates on (which may or may not be owned by the public sector regardless of who manages the network). The possible options for the ESN include:

Spectrum Ownership/Control Emergency Services Network1. Spectrum is owned by the public sector and leased to the Network Operator; only ESN is allowed to operate on those frequencies. This is the current arrangement.

ESN operates over its own frequencies and shares these with no other organisations. E&PSS have full control of network resources. This is the current arrangement.

2. Spectrum is owned by the public sector and leased to the Network Operator; but other organisations are allowed to operate on these frequencies provided they are aware that, when necessary, ESN communications will be given priority. This is often called ‘Ruthless pre-emption’, or ‘Assured Spectrum’. The Skynet V PFI contract determines assured access for the MOD to a specified amount of satellite bandwidth, for example.

ESN operates over its own frequencies, sometimes alongside other users over whom it has priority use of the network and network capacity. Access to the network can be withdrawn from other users when additional capacity is needed by the emergency services. E&PSS have the upper hand in the control and management of network resources, safeguarding essential requirements even though they are likely to be a minority user community.

3. Spectrum is owned by the private sector, and the ESN is one of a number of customers renting time/space. Strong Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are put in place to ensure Ruthless pre-emption for the emergency services when necessary.

ESN operates over frequencies that the emergency services do not control. The service is dependent on SLAs being honoured when there is competition for network capacity. The network operator has the upper hand in negotiating/agreeing safeguards for the minority E&PSS user community.

4. Spectrum is owned by the private sector, with weaker SLAs. The ESN is one of a number of customers renting time/space. The emergency services have to compete for network usage with other customers.

ESN operates over frequencies that the emergency services do not control and is dependent on SLAs being honoured when there is competition for network capacity. The network operator has a strong upper hand in negotiating/agreeing safeguards for a minority user community.

While the first of the above options would be the ideal solution, it is likely to be an extremely costly one, particularly with regard to relatively short duration contracts, and simply may not be feasible in the current economic climate. As we move down the options from this ideal position, more compromises are likely to be made – particularly with regard to resilience in extreme situations – which will require increasingly complex mitigating strategies to ensure sufficient resilience is not compromised. Part of the aim of this paper is to set out clearly what those mitigations will need to be, so that they can be appropriately factored in to future models of the ESN. These are covered in depth in Chapter V.

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7 DCMS,Enabling UK Growth – Releasing Public Spectrum: Making 500MHz of spectrum available by 2020, March 2011, p138 BlogentrybyO2’sChiefExecutiveRonanDunne,see:http://blog.o2.co.uk/home/2010/06/offering-fair-and-transparent-access-to-mobile-data.html lastaccessed17May2012

Spectrum ManagementInternationally, spectrum usage and management is governed by the United Nations and regulated by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). The UK Administration, which represents the UK Government in the ITU, is Ofcom. At the national level, Ofcom is the independent local regulator and the competition authority for the UK communications industries. It is responsible for the allocation, maintenance and supervision of the UK Radio Spectrum, allocating licenses to organisations wishing to use its frequencies, on either an ongoing basis or around temporary events such as the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Ofcom is a licensing and regulation organisation that regulates who uses which frequencies and, where necessary, imposes restrictions on use though it does not own the spectrum. At present, the public sector is a major holder of spectrum in the UK with almost 50 per cent of spectrum below 15GHz currently allocated for use by the MoD, aeronautical and maritime, and emergency services7.The Home Office, MoD and other government departments (OGDs) responsible for the emergency services coordinate their use of spectrum through Ofcom, including buying, selling and renting spectrum. Subject to technical and regulatory restrictions, Departments may lease the use of some frequency bands on commercial terms through short or long-term arrangements, and in some instances without charge. UK policy, however, is pushing departments to release 500MHz below 5GHz of spectrum to the market by 2020. Contributing to this target, the VHF frequencies used by the emergency services prior to the introduction of the Airwave Service have been released to Ofcom.

Economic Value of SpectrumPrior to the introduction of mobile telephony, the need for spectrum was largely confined to business uses: to professional broadcasters, to organisations such as the military and the police who required a professional network on which to operate, and to amateur radio networks for hobby use. Today, in contrast, everyone is using spectrum. It is required for the operation of mobile phones, tablet computers, WiFi, Kindles, etc, and commercial network operators compete with the public sector for spectrum availability.

Data traffic volumes across networks is growing considerably year-on-year. In 2012, O2 estimated8 that data traffic on its network was doubling every four months. One streamed YouTube video has the same effect on the network as half a million text messages sent simultaneously, the equivalent of everyone in Newcastle sending a text at once. And yet we expect the networks we use to adapt to these changes seamlessly. The end-user rarely thinks about the data capacity of the network, or that sending a video is so much more data intensive than sending a text.

This has profound economic implications. Spectrum is a much more valuable commodity now than it has been the past. Historically, public sector organisations such as the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence could hold on to large amounts of spectrum without needing a strong business case because,

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simply, no-one else was particularly interested in it and it was relatively inexpensive to retain. Now that spectrum is a considerably more valuable commodity, and particularly in the current economic climate, the public sector is finding it increasingly difficult to hold on to unused spectrum. These issues are covered in depth in the Cave Report9 published in 2005 and the MoD’s Defence Spectrum Management consultation paper in 200810.

It is hard to justify the development and procurement of an ESN operating on government owned spectrum, which uses specialised, bespoke equipment if commercial networks and COTS technology are likely to suffice. The counter argument, however, is that the lives the emergency services protect, and the stability this maintains, also has a profound economic (not to mention moral) value. The short term financial gain raised from the sale of spectrum has to be weighed against the long term gain of stability and lives saved. Some of these arguments are addressed in a 2013 paper by Dr Alexander Grous of London School of Economics11.

Resilience ConcernsA network that operates over a commercial bearer has economic advantages for the Emergency Services, but raises concerns over resilience. In particular, there is the danger of the network becoming overloaded due to ever increasing volumes of traffic as usage grows, particularly during unplanned events. It is possible for commercial bearers to prioritise calls from certain users, and from pre-arranged numbers, or to switch off network access to some users (e.g. the public) while allowing others (e.g. the emergency services) to remain active12, and for such ‘ruthless pre-emption’ for emergency services to be embedded in Service Level Agreements (SLAs) tied to the contract to operate the ESN. There are concerns, however, over whether such SLAs will be sufficiently strong enough to protect E&PSS particularly as traffic volumes increase or will be honoured appropriately when the time comes. Commercial operators will want to keep all their customers happy (i.e. connected), and in terms of numbers, E&PSS users will be a relatively small portion, typically around just 2 per cent, of an operator’s customer base.

Also resilience is about more than just capacity and priority. The network must be designed to remain operational during certain unforeseen events (e.g. power outages) and there must be no single points of failure that could bring down a large part of the network. The management and maintenance processes to deal with failures and damage also need to be resilient and robust. Commercial operators may consider these aspects in their networks, but when they are designed against a highly competitive environment, this may not measure up to the resilience needed to meet E&PSS requirements.

For this reason, one mitigation for the risks associated with the move to a commercial bearer could be a ‘fall back’ additional capability of some kind retained within the public sector.

9 See:http://www.spectrumaudit.org.uk/final.htmlastaccessed17May201210See:http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/8B9CFFD1-6C36-476A-A6C3-8A3E5635DC55/0/dsm_consultation_report.pdf,lastaccessed17May201211See:http://www.lse.ac.uk/businessAndConsultancy/LSEEnterprise/pdf/tetraReport.pdf,lastaccessed25April201412Whileacknowledgingthatthesituationdescribedistechnologicallypossible,theemergencyserviceshavesomeconcernsaboutitspracticality,pointing outthat,forexample,duringanemergencytheabilitytosavelivesmaybeasdependentonmembersofthepublicbeingabletodial999andgetthrough to the Ambulance Service as it would be for ambulance crew to remain in contact with their control room

Emergency and public safety services need to be able to communicate with one another at precisely the time that the media and the public will also want increased access to the networks

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This chapter is intended to be read in conjunction with the BAPCO Positioning Paper Requirements for Assured Mission Critical Voice and Future Harmonised Spectrum for UK Public Safety13.

The aim of the historical context, background science and case studies described over the next chapters is to provide stakeholders with sufficient information to understand the key issues involved in communication requirements of the UK emergency services and to help them to decide whether or not to support British APCO’s call for Mission Critical Voice.

The ultimate aim of the emergency services is to protect and help people of the United Kingdom. To do this, the emergency services currently use:

• Voice communication, including unit-to-unit communication, group talk and executive communications• Data communication, including the exchange of images and files• Geographic Information Systems (GIS), including systems that provide location information, maps and directions.

British APCO’s position is that any Public Protection and Disaster Relief (PPDR) network – meaning a network that can allow the police, fire service and other agencies involved in PPDR to operate effectively and save lives – must deliver two components: Mission Critical Voice (MCV) and Mission Critical Data (MCD) that is both resilient and secure during BAU operations. These must be recognised in ESN Service Level Agreements. In extreme situations, when all else fails, MCV must still remain available.

Mission Critical VoiceIn the USA, the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council (NPSTC) has outlined the following requirements for MCV14, which are equally applicable to the UK:

Direct Mode or Talk Around: This mode of communications provides public safety officers with the ability to communicate unit-to-unit when out of range of a wireless network OR when working in a confined area where direct unit-to-unit communications is required.

Push-to-Talk (PTT): This is the standard form of public safety voice communications today – the speaker pushes a button on the radio and transmits the voice message to other units. When they have finished speaking they release the Push-to-Talk switch and return to the listen mode of operation.

Full Duplex Voice Systems: This form of voice communications mimics that in use today on cellular or commercial wireless networks where the networks are interconnected to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).

Group Call: This method of voice communications provides communications from one-to-many members of a group and is of vital importance to the public safety community.

Talker Identification: This provides the ability for a user to identify who is speaking at any given time and could be equated to caller ID available on most commercial cellular systems today.

Chapter I: The Argument for Mission Critical Voice

13 British APCO Requirements to Assure Mission Critical Communications and Harmonised Spectrum for interoperability of UK Public Safety Responders http://www.bapco.org.uk/content/library/articles/british-apco-requirements-to-assure-mission-critical-communications-and-harmonised-spectrum-for-interoperability-of-uk-public-safety-responders/,accessed25April201414NationalPublicSafetyTelecommunicationsCouncilBroadbandWorkingGroup,Mission Critical Voice Communications Requirements for Public Safety, NPSTC,http://npstc.org/download.jsp?tableId=37&column=217&id=1911&file=FunctionalDescripton,lastaccessed1May2014

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Criticality

(Resilience & Priority)

Capability

(Functionality)

Coverage Capacity CostControl

Emergency Alerting: This indicates that a user has encountered a life-threatening condition and requires access to the system immediately and is, therefore, given the highest level or priority.

Audio Quality: This is a vital ingredient for MCV. The listener must be able to understand without repetition; be able to identify the speaker; detect stress in a speaker’s voice; and be able to hear background sounds without these interfering with the prime voice communications.

The BAPCO positioning paper referred to previously identifies the requirements BAPCO considers to be essential for the ESN to provide the MCV functionality outlined above. These are known as the ‘4Cs’ – Criticality, Coverage, Capacity and Capability – plus the additional characteristics of Cost and Control.

Criticality (Resilience and Priority)The key criticality for the ESN is the need to be resilient to all likely shocks and stressors, which may include hacking, damage to physical infrastructure, power failures, sudden upsurges in communications traffic on the network and cyber attack. Chapter V

explores situations in which communications often fail, and the impact of this on the incident and those involved in it. Research carried out by RUSI for this study, which will be covered later in the report, highlights that physical damage to infrastructure, and the ability to cope with a major incident on top of a planned large event, are particular areas of vulnerability.

Where the volume of communications traffic is likely to exceed what the network can easily absorb, the need to prioritise some communications over others comes into play. There are times when it will be critical to ensure the emergency services can communicate even if the public cannot.

Coverage The ESN must have national coverage and operate in all environments where PPDR is needed, from crowded, highly built-up inner cities to remote agricultural regions where there is little commercial imperative to install communications infrastructure. The current Airwave Network provides more than 99 percent geographic coverage of Great Britain and the remainder can be covered temporarily when needed using mobile base stations, which are also (and in fact more often)

Fig 1: The 4Cs of Mission Critical Voice

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used to provide additional capacity where coverage already exists.

Urban environments have a much higher demand for mobile services than rural ones. There may be little commercial imperative to provide infrastructure in remote areas of the countryside, and the availability of mobile phone masts and, more recently, broadband, in such areas usually lags behind that of urban centres, as figs 2 and 3 and a number of recent reports show15. The emergency services are currently able to operate on the Airwave Network in areas where there is no commercial coverage because of more than 3,800 masts and mobile base stations. Where extra capacity is required, or where no permanent infrastructure exists, mobile base stations can be deployed to provide temporary infrastructure and additional coverage. Not only is it important to ensure that this capability continues to be provided under the new ESN agreements but also, considering the impact of physical damage during emergencies explored in Chapter V and the

increasing frequency and severity of flooding in particular on the UK16, such provision – which can be as dependent on the fuel supply and generators to power the infrastructure as on the infrastructure itself – may become even more critical in future.

CapacityThe current Airwave Network operates on a model of 20 per cent additional contingency capacity above business as usual (BAU) operations. To ensure MCV during Business as Usual operations and under duress, the network must be able to cope with unexpected upsurges in capacity requirements. The more users on a network there are, the more congested that network is likely to be, meaning that maintaining channels for use only for the emergency services is the most resilient option. Maintaining sufficient capacity on the networks at all times for use in extremis is undeniably a financial burden, but it is highly risky to consider doing so to be unnecessary or expendable.

15 See,forexample,http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/mar/03/broadband-rage-slow-expensive-complaints,accessed16April2014, orhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-26819483,accessed16April201416 See,http://www.theccc.org.uk/,lastaccessed16April2014

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Built up areas with high population density have much higher demands for communications infrastructure than remote rural areas. Commercial network coverage in areas where there is less demand and fewer customers usually lags behind that available in urban areas

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Source: Ofcom/operators

Geographic Coverage of Mobile Networks

Fig 2: Ofcom table demonstrating the network coverage of the UK as of 2012.17

Fig 3: Ofcom table showing 2G coverage in comparison with 3G as of 2012.18

Commercial network coverage depends on the number of customers who require the service; there is less commercial imperative to provide the service in sparsely populated rural areas. Provision of service often lags behind that available to urban areas, as infrastructure is provided later, and may not be provided at all.

17 Ofcom,Infrastructurereport,2012update,availableat: http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/telecoms-research/infrastructure-report/Infrastructure-report2012.pdf18 Ibid.

Mobile Coverage2G 3G

Geographic coverage Premises coverage Geographic coverage Premises CoverageNo signal from any operator

Signalfrom all operators

No signal from any operator

Signalfrom all operators

No signal from any operator

Signalfrom all operators

No signal from any operator

Signalfrom all operators

England 4.2% 72.8% 0.2% 94.6% 6.0% 31.3% 0.3% 80.5%

Scotland 27.5% 38.0% 0.8% 91.6% 50.8% 5.2% 3.0% 68.0%

Northern 8.5% 58.8% 1.3% 88.0% 49.4% 10.5% 11.7% 55.9%

Wales 14.3% 49.2% 0.8% 84.1% 22.1% 9.8% 2.4% 52.4%

UK 12.8% 58.8% 0.3% 93.6% 24.3% 19.9% 0.9% 77.3%

2GUrban Semi-urban Rural

No signal from any operator

Signal from all operators

No signal from any operator

Signal from all operators

No signal from any operator

Signal from all operators

England 0.0% 99.7% 0.0% 97.0% 1.4% 69.4%

Scotland 0.0% 99.7% 0.0% 96.8% 4.1% 65.9%

Northern Ireland 0.0% 99.7% 0.0% 96.4% 4.4% 66.7%

Wales 0.0% 99.7% 0.0% 89.8% 3.6% 56.1%

UK 0.0% 99.7% 0.0% 96.6% 2.1% 67.8%

3GUrban Semi-urban Rural

No signal from any operator

Signal from all operators

No signal from any operator

Signal from all operators

No signal from any operator

Signal from all operators

England 0.0% 96.5% 0.1% 54.7% 2.1% 25.8%

Scotland 0.0% 98.0% 0.3% 48.1% 15.1% 18.0%

Northern Ireland 0.0% 93.4% 6.5% 20.7% 34.8% 13.0%

Wales 0.0% 87.2% 0.4% 34.9% 10.2% 12.2%

UK 0.0% 96.3% 0.3% 51.2% 6.3% 23.0%

Source: Ofcom/operators

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CapabilityThe information provided in Chapters I and III sets out the functional capability required by an emergency services network but also points towards the difference between what is genuinely required that improves or impedes operational efficiency, and what is considered to be necessary on the basis of technology that has become ‘normalised’ within wider society and therefore risks media and political backlash if it appears to have been denied to the emergency services.

CostIn today’s economic climate, the future spectrum needs of the emergency services must be weighed against limited public sector budgets. Just because technology exists, it does not automatically follow that it – or the access to the spectrum on which

it can operate – can be afforded. Business cases need to be tighter than ever before but need to consider the social costs of providing security and safety as well as just the financial ones.

Growing commercial sector spectrum requirements have increased pressure on those with surplus spectrum to release it; spectrum is a more valuable commodity than it has ever been in the past – see page 13.

Ring-fencing Mission Critical Voice and accepting that other means of communication may be expendable at the extremes of network resilience will ensure cost effectiveness without compromising absolutely baseline operational efficacy.

Further to the above, the Mission Critical Voice element of the emergency services network, whether it is part of or ring-fenced from the more data intensive applications of the network, must be controlled by the public sector. Issues relating to

Picture of Airwave mobile unit to go in here 17

An Airwave SmartPhone handset was launched in April 2014; the network can be accessed through a variety

of platforms, which can evolve as COTS technology evolves

21

the control of the ESN are covered on page 12 and in Annex 2. NATO frequencies or other controlled by the military, would be the most obvious, particularly if further NATO bands are assigned to PPDR use across Europe in 2015.

Mission Critical DataNew developments in digital technologies have meant that emergency services have more tools at their disposal than ever before. In a crisis this information can be shared rapidly: images of casualties can be shared with doctors and pictures of suspects can be shared amongst law enforcement agencies, for example. This requires the availability of Mission Critical Data (MCD). Eight categories of public safety data have been identified by the EU Law Enforcement Working Party (LEWP) Expert Radio Communications Group18 and these are:

• Automatedcontrolsystemsdata exchange • FacialRecognition • M2Mdatacollection/sharing&telemetry • PatientRecordAccess • PictureInformationcollection/distribution • Remoteadmin/management • SituationalAwareness • VideoStreaming

Mission Critical Voice, however, is the absolute baseline capability. It acknowledges that 100 per cent performance, 100 per cent of the time, is unrealistic in the most extreme situations, but equally acknowledges that when optimal communications fail something (voice) is better than nothing.

The capability for Mission Critical Voice that meets all the 4Cs criteria set out above cannot and must not be compromised for financial economy.

18PartoftheEUJusticeandHomeAffairsCommittee(JHA),seehttp://eu2013.ie/ireland-and-the-presidency/abouttheeu/theeuexplained/ councilworkingparties/lastaccessed7May,2014

Fire and ambulance collaborate at the scene of an accident

22

Chapter II: Emergency Services Communications in Historical Context Historically, the emergency services required bespoke communications solutions designed against a stringent requirement in order to connect individual officers with one another, with their stations, and with the general public as no commercial alternatives were capable of meeting the requirement. Without bespoke solutions, such communications would not have been possible.

The earliest police boxes in the UK were introduced in Glasgow in 1891, for example. They had gas lanterns on the roof that could be turned on or off by the central police station as a signal to patrolling officers to call for instructions. This was long before the invention of hand-held radios and before widespread distribution of public telephone kiosks. Standardised police boxes operating on a nationwide network were first introduced to the UK in 1923, three years prior to the widespread introduction of the familiar red public telephone kiosks.

At the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, the ability for a police officer to call his central station while on patrol was dependent on these bespoke solutions and such police boxes had a demonstrable advantage to operations: they allowed officers to report back to police stations, and to receive new instructions, without having to physically return to those stations. The result was significant time savings and increased operational efficiency.

Personal radio systems, which were first issued to police officers and installed in police cars in the 1960s – again, long before the introduction of mobile phones and car phones to the general public – had further demonstrable benefits to operational

efficiency19, putting police officers in constant contact with their colleagues even when on the move in areas where there were no police boxes.

In the case of both police boxes and early police radios, the technology available to the emergency services was considerably in advance of communications technology routinely used by, or available to, the general public.

The Airwave NetworkThe process that led to the development of the current Airwave Network began in 199320, following a Home Office review of radio communications in the Police and Fire Services. The result was the Airwave Network, a TETRA (see Annex 3 for an explanation of TETRA) system which delivers critical voice and data communications. A 20 year framework agreement to deliver the network was signed in February 2000, and Lancashire Constabulary became the first police force in Great Britain to use it in 2001. The Airwave Network had been rolled out across Great Britain by 2005. All police, fire and ambulance services in England and Wales were using the Airwave Service by late 2011.

The Airwave Network operates on dedicated frequency bands of the electromagnetic spectrum: 380-400MHz (380MHz-385MHz and 390-395MHz for uplinks and downlinks), plus 410-414MHz and 420-424MHz within the 400-430MHz band for Direct Mode Operation21, which can be activated when the Airwave Network is unavailable or inaccessible. The main bands used to support the majority of communications on Airwave, 380-385MHz and 390MHz-395MHz, are owned

19SeePolicing in the 21st Century: Reconnecting police and the people,HomeOfficereportJuly2010, see:http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/consultations/policing-21st-century/policing-21st-full-pdf?view=Binary,lastaccessed18May201220 SeeFigure9,CommunicationsInteroperabilityTimeline,Communications Interoperability in a Crisis, p26, https://www.rusi.org/publications/whitehallreports/ref:O459D3C8297AAE/,lastaccessed21March201421TheMoDandotheragenciesalsoutilizeanumberofDMOfrequenciesinthe380-430MHzband

23

by NATO and are reserved across Europe for use by Emergency and Public Safety Services (E&PSS), though not all countries’ emergency services take advantage of this. There is currently no equivalent provision for a similarly reserved, harmonised band suitable for carrying a more data intensive network, though many stakeholders hope that spectrum in the 700MHz band will be allocated for this use at the World Radiocommunications Conference in 2015 (WRC15)22.

The Normalisation of Mobile CommunicationsBy the time the current Airwave Network was commissioned, mobile phones were becoming commonplace – for the first time, any member of the general public had the ability to communicate with anyone, from anywhere, on commercially available and economically accessible technology. Today, the average member of the public is likely to carry at least one, and more likely a number of mobile communication devices, including SmartPhones, tablets and laptop computers. The average police officer is also likely to carry their own personal mobile communication device(s) in addition to an Airwave handset and other professional equipment issued by their employer.

The Airwave Network on which today’s emergency services operate professionally represents, for the first time in history, functionality that is to a large degree also available to the public through commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) technology. The technology the public carries may even have additional functionality, such as cameras, built in. The combination of a number of factors, including

the length of public sector project procurement; the length of the contract awarded due to the investment needed to build the network; and the pace of change of mobile technology meant that by the time the Airwave Network was fully rolled out nationally in May 2005, the handsets through which it is accessed arguably appeared out of date to the end-users. The requirement for handsets that are robust enough for emergency services’ use, have an emergency button, extended battery life and push-to-talk technology do not always coincide with the needs of the commercial market, but when end-users are used to something different from their personal equipment, they begin to expect it in their professional equipment too. This observation is not intended to imply that the Airwave Network does not offer sufficient functionality to guarantee operational efficiency, however: rather that the relationship between what is essential, and what end-users would like to have because they are familiar with using it in their personal lives, is important. This is considered later in the report, in Chapter III and also has implications for harmonisation, discussed in Annex 2.

The relationship between the technology available to the police, and the technology available to the public is changing. The majority of police forces did not begin issuing SmartPhones until 2010, for example, whereas consumers have had access to the iPhone since 2007. The emergency services often take a cautious approach, with the need to conduct trials of future technologies before they are introduced to assess their suitability, applicability and cost effectiveness. This can take considerable time and can struggle to keep up with consumer technology: by the time the trial is over, a new piece of hardware or software has been created and the resulting technology may

22MandatetoCEPTtoDevelopHarmonisedTechnicalConditionsforthe694-790MHz(‘700MHz’)FrequencyBandintheEUfortheProvisionofWireless BroadbandCommunicationsServicesandOtherUsesinSupportofEUSpectrumPolicyPriorities,Ref.Ares(2013)317781–11/03/2013 <https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/sites/digital-agenda/files/Mandate_CEPT_700_MHz%20.doc.pdf>accessed8April2014

24

Fig 4: Technology timeline Throughout the Twentieth century, the emergency services were early adopters of new technology. Police use of telephones, radios and computers pre-dated widespread use by the general public. In recent years, however, the rapid pace of commercial technology innovation has made it increasingly difficult for lengthy of public sector procurement processes to keep up.

1829: RattleWhentheMetropolitanPolicewereformedin1829,thestandardcommunications devicewasarattle.

1884: WhistleWhistles replaced

rattlesafterresearch showed

the sound travelled further

and was more easilyheard.

1880: TelephoneWithin four years oftheinventionof the telephone in1876,GlasgowPolice had telephone lines installed to allow inter-stationcommunicationandGlasgowFireService used a firealarmsystemlinked to the telephonysystem.Thefirstpoliceboxwas installed in Glasgowin1891.

PHONe BOx PHOTO: Mike kirBy. POliCe STaTiON: weST MiDlaNDS POliCe. TaBleT: uCDS

1876: Telephone invented

25

2001: Airwave handsetLancashirePolicefirsttotrialAirwave;networkrolledoutnationallyby2005.

1923: Police Box NetworkBluepoliceboxeswerelinkedtoanationwidenetwork;policeofficerscould communicate with their control rooms and the public could use the boxestocontactthepolice.TelephoneaccessfortheBritishpublicwas not widely available noraffordableuntil1925-28;thetraditionalred public telephone kiosk was introduced in1926.

1937: 999 SystemMetPoliceintroduce999System;publicabletousepoliceboxestodial999wherenoothertelephonesareavailable.

1939: Two-way radio developed for military use

1967-69: Personal and in-car radio

Two-wayradios(portableandin-car)starttobeusedbyBritishPoliceandenablecontrol rooms to introduce

betterCommandandControlofincidents.Carphoneusebypublictakesoffinlate

1980s;thepublicnevertooktopersonalradios.

1926: Public

phone boxes introduced

2008: Police Laptops

Portable laptop computer use for the police

was pioneered byLeicestershirePolicein2008.

2005: Phone cameras common

Mobilephonetechnology increasing;by2005,cameras

and image exchange.

1991-95: Laptop computer market takes off

2007: SmartPhone market takes off

2010: Majority of police

forces have SmartPhones

iPads and tablets take off

2013: Hampshire Police use

tablets instead of handwriting

statements

2014: Airwave SmartPhone introduced

26

already seem obsolete. Fig 4 shows a timeline demonstrating the use of technology by the public and police. Of key importance is the increasingly short shelf life.

Advances in TechnologyAt the time of the Airwave Network’s procurement, and during the planning phases of the PSRCP which led to its development, such a bespoke network solution was still the only feasible way to provide the essential functionality required, including the appropriate levels of security and resilience needed (including, in particular, the necessary levels of geographic coverage – see Fig 3, page 19) as well as essential group talk functions. Such functionality was not generally available to the consumer market.

Much of this situation has changed over the last decade, however, and continuing improvements in technology mean that it is likely to develop further in the future. Commercial networks now have more complete coverage of the UK23, they are more able to prioritise emergency services communications traffic over that sent by the public24, and they are more able to provide end-to-end encryption of data, allowing communications to be sent securely over otherwise unsecure networks.

Off-the-shelf technology and commercial networks now routinely provide virtually all the communications functionality needed by the emergency services with the exception of group talk and ‘off-infrastructure’ communications (the ability to create a small, walkie-talkie style net that operates independently of the main network

in extreme situations), bringing the necessity of replacing the current network with another equally bespoke solution into question.

The business case for a fully or partly bespoke new network depends more on those areas of functionality which are not yet readily available (or readily provided) in the commercial sector, which in turn is most likely to be because there are few business drivers for them. Such functionality includes higher security than is routinely provided on commercial networks, more complete geographical coverage, and greater resilience in times of stress – which might include increased volumes of data traffic, or damage to physical infrastructure during severe weather or terrorist attacks – requirements set out in the BAPCO positioning paper, in Chapter I, and which will be discussed further in Chapter V. There are also considerations in respect of Direct Mode Operation (DMO), and Air-Ground-Air communications, which require specific modifications, spectrum allocation, standards and a willingness to allow off-network (and therefore non-chargeable) communications.

One option here may be, however, for the public sector to retain ownership of the spectrum the network operates on, and provide or subsidise the required infrastructure in regions where it would not otherwise be economically viable for a commercial company to do so. This would not only enable emergency services communications in such areas, but might also have additional benefits to other areas of the public sector in helping to enable other e-government functions, such as access to e-health and online education in such regions. This is essentially the FirstNet model in use in the US25.

23 LackofruralcoveragewasaseriousissueintheearlydaysoftheAirwavenetwork,particularlyfortheFireandRescueservices,althoughithassince been addressed24 CurrenttechnologyoperatesonMTPAS(MobileTelecomsPrivilegedAccessScheme)whichcanshutoutallbutregisteredusers.Itis,however,and all-or-nothingsystem,andonewhichcouldprioritiseregisterednumberswhileallowingotherusersthroughwhenthereiscapacityavailablewould be preferable25 See,http://www.ntia.doc.gov/page/about-firstnet,lastaccessed16April2014

27

Chapter III: Business as Usual?An important issue when considering the requirements of the new ESN is that the vast majority of emergency services operations take place in a benign civilian environment. Under such conditions, it should be perfectly possible for firefighters, ambulance paramedics and police officers to communicate with one another and with their control rooms using the same technology that any businessman or woman uses when away from the office.

A percentage of E&PSS operations do not take place in a benign environment, however, nor in an environment that has commercial network coverage. Good security and end-to-end encryption of data to protect sensitive information and provide confidentiality is often required. It is much more difficult for criminals to hack into mobile phone communications than it was for their predecessors to listen in to VHF radio transmissions, and increasing developments in end-to-end encryption of data mean that it is much more feasible that sufficient security can be provided across commercial bearers now than during the planning stages of the PSRCP in the 1990s. National coverage has also improved considerably but is still tied to population coverage rather than geographic coverage; remote areas lag considerably behind and many are still not served by commercial network coverage.

In addition, during major incidents such as the 7 July 2005 London bombings, the volume of communications increases dramatically. In such situations communication channels become congested and blocked in just the same way as roads become blocked when traffic levels increase. Networks used by the E&PSS (or E&PSS usage on a network shared with other organisations and individuals) need to be protected against any

sudden upsurge in network traffic. This can be achieved by having a network that is only used by the emergency services, which is not affected by competing demands from others, or by having the equivalent of a ‘bus lane’ on a shared network that gives priority to certain users.

These considerations must be weighed against the political, media and public expectation that if it is possible to do something, the emergency services ‘should’ be able to do it, and that if they can’t, then “because the system was too expensive” might not be a politically acceptable answer. Neither would, “because we were only likely to need that functionality once every five years, and it was impractical for many reasons, one of which was financial, to impose it on the system we need to use day-to-day”. In the current financial climate, if the new ESN has to make such operational compromises for economic efficiency, politicians need to be fully aware of these risks, and willing to justify why they were prepared to take them, if the network fails the next time a major incident occurs.

Technology ExpectationsThe relationship between the available technology and what people want and expect to have, rather than what evidence has proved they need, can be illustrated by the differing responses to two questionnaire surveys26 conducted by RUSI five years apart.

In 2009, RUSI undertook a major study into communications interoperability by the emergency services, which was published in 201027. This study canvassed the views of emergency responders on their communications expectations, asking how important they felt it was that the communications

26 Themethodologyforthefirstsurveyisexplainedinthefullreport,JenniferCole,‘CommunicationsInteroperabilityinaCrisis2:HumanFactorsand OrganisationalProcesses’,RUSIOccasionalPaper,June2010,pp1-427 JenniferCole,‘CommunicationsInteroperabilityinaCrisis2:HumanFactorsandOrganisationalProcesses’,RUSIOccasionalPaper,June2010

28

2009 2014Voice 87.5% 100%

Images 49% 44%

Video streaming (live) 47% 19%

GIS 76% 88%

Access information via the internet 61% 88%

Access information on incident management system 65% 75%

28Atotalof16responsesweregiventothesecondsurvey,whichrepresentedapproximately20percentoftheoriginalresponsecohort29Outofamultiplechoiceof‘veryimportant’,‘important’or‘notveryimportant’

technology they used had certain functionalities, and also what platforms they thought communications should be accessed through.

In 2014, RUSI repeated the survey by contacting people who had responded to the original survey (and who had expressed their willingness to participate in further research). The same people were sent the same questions, to see how closely the responses given in 2009 correlated with the responses given in 201428. These responses were then analysed, and the assumptions drawn from them are set out below. Each of these questions will be analysed in turn.

Differences in FunctionalityQ: In the future, how important will it be for you to be able to communicate the following information, and in the following ways, during multi-agency operations?

The percentage of questionnaire respondents who answered ‘very important’29 to the above question is as shown in Fig 5, below.

The replies indicate that there is a general trend upwards in terms of the functionality respondents feel is important to their operational effectiveness

in a number of areas. This broadly correlates to the increasing functionality of COTS technology with which they are familiar: as the ability to access information on the internet from anywhere at any time becomes more normalised, respondents begin to see it more as a ‘must have’ than a ‘nice to have’ feature. This is hardly unexpected.

More interesting however, are the responses to voice and videostreaming technology, which have been highlighted on the table below. In 2009, when mobile technology and SmartPhones were relatively new and offered future promise, a small but significant number of respondents felt that there would come a time when voice would be no longer essential to their operations. In 2014 this small minority has disappeared: 100 percent of the respondents now consider voice to be ‘very important’.

Conversely, bandwidth rich, live videostreaming, which very few respondents would have had much practical experience of using in 2009, and which approximately half thought would be essential in future, has dropped to less than one in five respondents now seeing as essential. In this case, familiarity with the functionality has brought with it a realisation that it does not add as much operational efficiency as might have been expected to in 2009.

Fig 5: Perceived functionality requirements

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Differences in PlatformsQ: During a multi-agency incident response, should you ideally be using, or have access to, communications systems that work most like:

The percentage of questionnaire respondents who answered ‘very important’30 to the above question is shown in Fig 6.

As with the responses above, in most cases the responses given in 2014 echoed the general upward trends in technology relative to 2009. Most dramatic is the difference in response to the perceived requirement for a mobile phone that can access the internet. In 2009, when this was not a standard feature of mobile phones, less than half of the respondents saw such functionality as necessary, but by 2014, when this is a standard feature of virtually all mobile phones, the percentage of respondents who consider it to be essential has risen to more than four in five.

At the same time, the perceived desire for a Blackberry, which provides virtually the same functionality, has dropped by half. It is extremely unlikely that operational requirements have changed since 2009 in such a way that SmartPhones are considerably more relevant to today’s major incidents than they were in 2009, nor that they are more suited than Blackberries to dealing with such incidents. A more likely explanation of the difference is that the falling market share of Blackberries, which has declined from close to 50 percent of the mobile data device market in 2009 to less than 3 percent today, has simply made them less desirable. People want what they are familiar with, and what they see others around them using. Whether or not this is what they truly need is a different matter.

This desire for familiar technology is further illustrated to a response to a question on the portability of mobile data devices.

2009 2014A radio net 73% 63%

A mobile phone31 73% 88%

A mobile phone that can access the internet 43% 81%

A Blackberry 38% 19%

A laptop computer 70% 94%

Video conferencing 38% 56%

30Outofamultiplechoiceof‘veryimportant’,‘important’or‘notveryimportant’31Whenthisquestionwasoriginallyaskedin2009,atypicalmobilephonewouldnothavebeenaSmartPhone.Somemodelsmayhavehadacamera, and could have sent and received photos, but would not have enabled internet access

Fig 6: Desired platforms for mobile communication

31

In 2009, less than 40 per cent of respondents were convinced that communications equipment needed to be small enough to be carried on foot; this has since increased to more than 60 percent. Again, assuming that no significant changes have occurred to the way operations are undertaken, this difference in response rates is likely to be due more to familiarity with available technology: in 2009, people may not have felt comfortable that a device small enough to be carried on foot could provide the future functionality they thought they would require and, subsequently, they did not see such a device as very important. Now they are more comfortable that it can, their perception of its importance has changed.

SummaryThe above figures, though by no means based on exhaustive research, do highlight some interesting perceptions regarding technology and essential functionality. The different values for videostreaming illustrate that some functionality, while attractive as a future option, loses that attraction once it is more readily available and its genuine efficacy can be tested. Others, which may appear to be more ‘old fashioned’ prove over time to be tried and tested, and much more essential than was earlier predicted. Perceptions are strongly influenced by familiar COTS technology, as the differing attitudes to Blackberries and SmartPhones over time shows,

and it is important to remember that such attitudes are as likely to be held by the media, politicians and the public as by the Category 1 responders32 who took part in these surveys.

Most important to highlight is the increasing realisation and acceptance of the criticality of voice communication, which is higher now than it was in 2009, with 100 percent of today’s respondents seeing it as very important. This supports the BAPCO position on Mission Critical Voice, covered in Chapter I.

32Responseswerereceivedfromfire,police,ambulanceandLocalAuthorityresponders

Q: Is it more important for the communications system(s) you use to be:

2009 2014Small enough to be carried on foot? 39% 63%

Fig 7: Portability of platform

Emergency services during an exercise

32

p

Chapter IV: Communications Science

Radio waves are electromagnetic radiation that enable the transfer of information through space (see fig 8). They are used for mobile communications, including audio and video broadcasting (not just to make radios work!).

The electromagnetic spectrum is the range of all possible frequencies of electromagnetic radiation.

The radio spectrum refers to the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum between 3000Hz and 300,000,000Hz (3KHz-300GHz). Radio spectrum is often referred to simply as ‘Spectrum’. It is important to be aware that ‘Spectrum’ is a reference to certain frequencies – the ‘radio frequency band’ – not a value in its own right. When an operator says they needs ‘more spectrum’, what they mean is that they would like to operate over ‘a wider spectrum band’ across a wider range of radio frequencies.

Every radio wave has three components; a ground wave, a skywave and a direct wave. Radio transmissions above 30MHz are predominantly reliant on the direct wave (line of sight) where the radio horizon is 1.3 times the visual horizon (approx 15 miles). A higher antenna will provide greater range.

1Hz (1 cycle in 1 sec)

In order to fully understand what will be required for the Emergency Services Network in future, a basic understanding of the science of how mobile communications work is necessary. The explanations below are intended to provide this.

Fig 9: A radio wave of 1Hz

X-RAYS

GAMMARAYS

0 102 104 106 108 1010 1012 1014 1016 1018 1020 1022

Frequency (waves per second (Hz))

Non-ionisingradiation Ionisingradiation

Fig 8: Electromagnetic Spectrum

EXTREMELYLOW

FREQUENCY

LOWFREQUENCY

RADIOWAVES

MICROWAVES

INFRAREDRADIATION

VISIBLELIGHT

ULTRAVIOLET

DIRECTCURRENT

Peakpp Wavelength

Time

33

All radio waves travel at the speed of light: 300,000,000 metres per second33. The length of a radio wave of 1Hz is 300,000,000 metres. The length of a radio wave of 300MHz is one metre. The human ear can generally hear sounds with frequencies between 20Hz and 20KHz (the audio range). All radio signals require processing to present the information to the end user/system in an audio/visual format; e.g. a radio, television or handset.

Natural and man-made objects affect radio waves. Signal strength can be reduced/degraded (attenuated) by buildings, materials and hills to a point where communications is lost. The higher the radio frequency, the greater susceptibility to natural attenuation and the increased requirement for more directional antennas (steerable microwave and satellite dishes).

The Airwave Network operates between 380 and 430MHz, while third Generation mobile phones operate between 1920-2170 MHz.

Hertz (Hz) is a measure of frequency: how many cycles (or single radio waves) occur per second. Trunked Radio Systems

Trunked radio systems – which include TETRA – allows relatively few radio channels to be shared by a large number of users, by assigning users to local groupings known as ‘talk groups’ which automatically find a vacant channel when one user wants to talk to others in the same talkgroup. This helps to make the most efficient use of the spectrum available and also ensures that certain users and talkgroups can be given priority over others when needed.

33Tobeexact:299,792,458metres

Fig 10: Diagram of how radio waves increase in frequency from 1Hz to 1,000,000,000Hz

Kilohertz (KHz) = 1,000HzMegahertz (MHz) = 1,000,000HzGigahertz (GHz) = 1,000,000,000Hz

p

Radiowaves don’t only refer to communications or broadcasts made over radios. TVs, mobile phones, SmartPhones, laptops, IPads, SatNavs, children’s toys, garage door remotes and radar systems also operate using radio waves!

Mobile masts and base stations allow additional capacity to be provided where the volume of

network traffic is expected to be high; for replacement capability

to be provided where permanent infrastructure has been damaged;

and for temporary infrastructure to be available in remote locations

when required

35

Fig 11: Diagram showing end to end communications

Apersonspeaksintoaradio.Thepersonhascreatedasoundwavewhichispickedupbythemicrophoneintheradio.

Thesoundwaveisthenconvertedviathemicrophoneintoanelectricalwave.Thiselectricalwaveisaltered,or‘modulated’,soastocontaintheinformationthatwascontainedinthesoundwave.

Foremergencyservices,thecommunicationmayneedtobeencryptedsothatitcannotbemonitoredordisruptedduringtransmission.Theelectricalwaveisthentransmittedandpickedupbyalocalbasestation.

Accessingtheinternetthroughmobiledevicesworksinasimilarway.Datafromthedeviceisturnedintoradiowaves,transmittedandthendecodedbyawirelessrouterwhichpassesonthedata.

Thebasestationsendsthesignaltoaswitch,the switch sends the signal on to the correct nextbasestation,whichinturnsendsthewaveontillitreachesitsdestination.Howclosebasestationsneedtobetooneanother,andthereforehowmanybasestationsareneededwithinaparticulararea,isdependentonthefrequenciesonwhichtheradiowavestheyaretransmittingoperate.Higherfrequenciesrequirebasestationstobeclosertogether,lowerfrequenciescanoperateonbasestationsfurtherapart.

Thefinalbasestationinthechainwillchangetheelectrical wave back to a format that can be picked up bytheintendedrecipient.

Thewaveisthendemodulatedbytherecipient’shandset and converted back to a sound wave which can beheardbythehumanear.

Base station 1

p

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Cell Network

Base station 2

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Radio Waves and DistanceRadio waves with different frequencies act differently within Earth’s atmosphere. Some frequency ‘bands’, or portions of the radio spectrum, are therefore more suitable for certain uses than others. Higher frequencies degrade more quickly, making them less suitable for use over longer distances than lower frequencies. In general, lower frequencies give better nationwide coverage, and require less infrastructure to maintain a network over a wide geographic area. Lower frequencies are also able to penetrate buildings better than higher frequencies.

For a message to be transmitted over a long distance, it will need to be re-transmitted at the point where the radio waves it is carried on would otherwise naturally degrade.

Similarly, two radio networks can operate on the same frequency as long as they are far enough apart that the radiowaves transmitted by one have sufficiently degraded by the time they reach the area in which the other is transmitting that they do not overlap and cause interference.

Some network providers reuse frequencies in different regions, far enough apart that they do not overlap, in order to maximise the number of users across the entire network. This is done by using the method displayed in Fig 12 (right). Assume that Frequency A has a capacity to support 50 users. As long as each cell of users operating on Frequency A is far enough apart from the next, Frequency A can support 50 users in each cell, increasing its capacity across the entire network. In Fig 12 if each cell can support 50 users, the six-cell network shown here could support 6 x 50 users, or 300 users, even though only three frequencies are used. Two cells on Frequency A (or B or C) must not be directly adjacent to one another, however.

Many different radio operators operating within the same spectrum band at any one time would have a similar effect to many different vehicles driving on a single stretch of road. In such cases, just as would happen on a busy road, congestion slows down the speed at which communications can get through. The fewer the number of users, the less congestion there is likely to be. It therefore benefits the emergency services to be a small number of users on a network no-one else is using, rather than a small percentage of a much larger user community.

Key Terms in End-to-End Communication

Antenna: Converts electrical waves into radio waves and vice versa.

Base Station: Base stations form part of the cell network. They receive information and then transmit it on to other parts of the network. In the context of computers, a base station can also be a wireless access point.

Cell Network: A network of base stations that provides coverage to many end-users over a particular geographic area. The frequencies on which the network operates will determine how many base stations are required and how far apart they need to be; higher frequencies degrade more quickly over distance and therefore require base stations to be closer together.

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Fig 12: A cell network showing how frequencies can be reused

N.B. Hexagons used for display purposes and are not representative of geographical distribution.

Base station 1

Base station 2

Frequency B Frequency B

Frequency C

Frequency A

Frequency A

Frequency C

Radiowave RegulationTo prevent interference between different users, and too many users operating on one frequency band, the artificial generation and use of radio waves is strictly regulated by law, coordinated by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) (see page 13). The radio spectrum is divided into a number of radio bands on the basis of frequency, and these bands are allocated to different users. In the UK, this is regulated by Ofcom and subject to the following legislation:

The Radio Equipment and Terminal Equipment and Regulations 2000 (Amended 2003)34.

Communications Act 200335 – Provides the operating framework of Ofcom and its responsibilities in relation to Spectrum in the UK.

Wireless Telegraphy Act 200636 – Consolidates previous legislation and is the principal piece of legislation on the powers available to Ofcom.

34 Seehttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2000/730/contents/made35See;http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/contents36 See;http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/36/contents

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A flood victim is assisted from a rescue boat in New Orleans, Tuesday Sept. 6 2005

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Chapter V: When Communications Don’t WorkThe previous two chapters have highlighted what functionality is required (in actuality and perception) by the emergency services. Another way to consider how this functionality can and should be delivered is to look not only at the science of how communications work, but in what circumstances, and under what conditions, they most often fail.

For this purpose, it is helpful to consider the following categories:

• BusinessasUsual(BAU) Day-to-day operations taking place under expected conditions in which there are no particular stresses to the system. Communications should be fully operational according to the highest specifications of the system.

• PlannedEvents The situation requires additional capabilities beyond those of day-to-day operations, such as additional capacity due to an expected increase in the number of users, or coverage in areas where insufficient infrastructure is normally present. The capabilities needed for such events should be predictable, however, enabling provisions to be made. Planned events might include a large sporting event in a purpose-built stadium, such as the Olympics, or a large music festival on rural farmland.

• UnplannedEvents An unexpected event, such as a major accident or incident, terrorist attack or

natural disaster, affects the capability of the network with no warning. Unplanned events may lead to an increase in network traffic, due to many users trying to communicate at once, and/or may take place in remote areas, where there is no infrastructure or network coverage. These events are more difficult to predict and will require ruthless pre-emption for the emergency services of what limited capability is available, and/or require mobile capacity to be delivered to the scene quickly to restore communications.

The expectation should be that communications function normally and at full capability during BAU, are stressed but should still function normally in planned events, are more stressed and are in more danger of failing if robust resilience has not been built in during unplanned events – particularly if the unplanned event happens in conditions that are already above BAU, such as during a large planned event.

In order to understand how and when communications fail and what places the most stress on communications systems, RUSI conducted a qualitative survey37 that invited C1 and C2 responders to give examples of when communications had failed and how this had impacted on their ability to operate. These were analysed alongside, and compared with records of communications failures complied by the TETRA and Critical Communications Association (TCCA) from information provided by the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA)38.

37 PutoutthroughSurveyMonkeytoC1andC2respondersonRUSI’sdatabase,totheBAPCOmembershipandtheAirwaveSharerslistandopenbetween July2013andFebruary201438 ENISA,NationalRoamingforResilience:Nationalroamingformitigatingmobilenetworkoutages,(November2013)e

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Reason for network failure

TCCA analysis RUSI survey Combined / %39

Technical upgrades 6 2 8 (21.5%)

Technical problems 8 0 8 (21.5%)

Severe weather 3 5 8 (21.5%)

Power outages (other than severe weather)

3 0 3 (8%)

Theft or deliberate damage 1 0 1 (3%)

Exceeded capacity 6 3 9 (24.5%)

Not known 14 0 n/a

39 Thispercentagecalculationemitsthe14caseswherecauseoffailureisunknown

The study was not intended to be an exhaustive cataloguing, nor an examination of the precise reasons for communications failures and their impacts. Rather, the intention was to give a broad overview of the type of situations in which communications fail and to suggest ways in which these might be mitigated by ensuring that allowance for them is recognised in the specifications of an emergency services network.

A total of 51 instances of serious communications failures were identified by the above process. In 14 cases, the cause of the failure was not known by the respondents, leaving 37 instances in which the cause could be codified into one of six categories: technical upgrades, technical problems (issues not directly related to a planned upgrade), severe weather, power outage (due to cause other than severe weather), theft or deliberate damage of any system component, or exceeded capacity. This produced Fig 13 at the top of the page showing causes of significant communications failures.

The cases studied varied considerably in the causes and consequences, but two causes stuck out as needing particular consideration to ensure the resilience of emergency services networks

and public communications: physical damage to communications infrastructure, and exceeded capacity where an unplanned event happens concurrently with a large planned event that has already stressed the network.

Physical Damage to InfrastructureThe case studies supplied to the RUSI survey in particular pointed to physical damage to infrastructure as being the most common cause of serious communications failure, cited in 60 per cent of the examples given (see Fig 14). Situations covered included very different levels of physical damage – from the devastating Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami of March 2011, in which only satellite phones and UHF radios remained operational, and Hurricane Katrina in the US in August 2005, where emergency services networks remained operational while commercial networks failed, to smaller accidental events such as a contractor cutting through a communications cable during routine engineering work and a Police HQ communications mast being hit by lightning.

Fig 13: Reasons for network failure

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Serious consequences were not confined to devastating natural disasters overseas: respondents offered similar experiences from the UK summer floods of 2007:

“Loss of fixed and mobile telephone coverage in flooded areas, and overload of public communication systems, resulted in delays and difficulty for members of the public attempting to call for assistance using the emergency 999 system. These same problems also made it much more difficult for staff from Category 1 partners, such as Local Authorities, to pass on vital intelligence information in respect of the extent of flooding or its impact on road and infrastructure. Members of the public unable to make contact with emergency services were more likely to take uninformed actions that may have put them at higher risk ... anecdotal evidence suggests that at least some injuries were sustained by members of the public attempting to rescue themselves or others when they believed no external help was available.”

While it was not always the case that emergency services networks remained operational while commercial networks failed – in the case of the devastating Japanese tsunami and earthquake, for example, virtually all communications failed – but in general they were much more robust, particularly in unplanned events where the main issue was the number of users on the network.

The ability of the emergency services to have robust communications and to be able to provide information to a public unable to access information themselves is vital. During the early phases of an event that has caused devastating physical damage in particular, without communications the public are harder to contact and reassure. This can lead to additional casualties as untrained volunteers, unaware that help is on its way, enter dangerous environments that exacerbate the situation for the professional responders when they arrive. This can make such situations more difficult to get under control, and also lead the public to lose confidence in responders and in the authorities’ ability to control the situation.

The ability to quickly repair damaged communications infrastructure, or to provide

What was the cause of the failure?

Technical

Network overload

Inappropriate use

Physical damage

Cyber attack

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

zero responses

zero responses

Fig 14: Survey results on the cause of communications failures

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What were the main consequences of the communications failure?

Lives were lost

People were injured

Situations took longer to get under control

Situational awareness was poor

Public were harder to reassure/advise

Property or material damage could have been

prevented

Responders looked bad

Public lost confidence in the response

Organisation criticised

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

temporary mobile infrastructure where permanent hardware has been damaged, is essential to resilience. This is often overlooked amid a priority focus on network security, but is equally important.

Exceeding CapacityA second category which was mentioned in multiple examples, occurred when an unexpected major incident happened concurrently with a large planned event that had already stretched the available capacity of the networks and/or where the networks were already operating with support from additional extra capacity. The two most extreme examples were the Boston Marathon bombing on

15 April 2013, and a stage collapse during severe weather at the Pukkelpop music festival in Belgium on 18 August 2011. Though less serious, further examples were given where communications capacity had been overloaded during large planned events simply because the numbers of attendees had significantly exceeded that expected. One such example was National Armed Forces Day in Nottingham, on 29 June 2013. In all the cases mentioned above, the commercial networks failed but the emergency services networks remained operational.

Ensuring there is spare capacity on the networks, whether this is permanently available or provided by temporary capacity that can be deployed

Fig 15: Survey results on the consequences of communications failures

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Capacity: Operational vs Technical Issues

Following major incidents, the capacity of commercial networks is often overloaded as everyone tries to communicate at once. This is a common feature of emergencies and has been observed in the UK during the 7 July London bombings, and in the US during the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, to name just two of many examples. In the most extreme cases, emergency services networks can also fail, though such occurrences are less common.

In the case of both commercial and bespoke networks, however, the cause of failure is generally more operational than technical: does everyone who is trying to communicate at once really need to and, even if they do, are there ways they could communicate that would use the limited capacity available more efficiently? More considered use of the networks would go a long way towards easing the challenges that occur during extreme events.

Communications problems between the emergency services during the Cumbria shootings by Derrick Bird in June 201040, for example, were largely due to misuse of available talk groups: everyone was trying to communicate on the same channel, rather than sharing communications between a number of available channels that, combined, would have had the capacity to cope.

Such impacts can be mitigated: following the Boston Marathon bombings, in the US, commercial network operator A&T and the Massachusetts Emergency Management Association both sent Tweets asking people to try texting friends rather than calling, as texts take up less bandwidth41, while other Twitter users independently began sending Tweets asking residents to unlock their wi-fi routers to free up the bandwidth they were not using to enable others to make essential communications.

Understanding how to take such measures requires awareness and training, however, for both the emergency services and the public. At present, the Emergency Services undergo limited training on how to best utilize the available talk groups, how to switch from one talk group to another, how to maintain net discipline in order to keep non-essential traffic to a minimum, and how to warn and inform the public on best use during emergencies. Increasing training to account for this, and planning on how the public could be informed to take mitigating action when network capacity is limited, will need to be factored in to emergency planning if spare capacity is reduced in future, from the 20 per cent set aside at present, for economic efficiency42.

40 See:http://www.cumbria.police.uk/Admin/uploads/attachment/files/News_Files/Inquest/Running_Orders/ACC_Chestermans_report.pdf,lastaccessed 15May201241 See:http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2013/4/16/technology-aided-info-sharing-after-boston-marathon-bombings,lastaccessed11April201442 See:http://www.wireless-mag.com/Features/20512/Efficiency__effectiveness_and_the_spending_squeeze.aspx,lastaccessed23May2012.

quickly when needed, is vital to communications resilience and must not be forgotten, even in times of austerity. To quote the words of one survey respondent:

“Where resources are stripped back, a loss of communications which disrupts people’s ability to do their job for an extended period of time reduces efficiency at a time when it is of the utmost importance.”

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CASE STUDY 1: Boston BombingsLocation: Boston, United States

Date: 15 April 2013

Networks in UseBostonAreaPoliceEmergencyRadioNetwork(BAPERN).PrivateNetworks(VerizonWireless,AT&TandSprintNextel).BAPERNisaTETRABand(470-512MHz)systemutilisedby166local,state,county,campus and federal law enforcement agencies43.

The EventOn15April2013duringtheBostonMarathon,twoimprovisedexplosivedevicesmadefrompressurecookersdetonated,killingthreepeopleandinjuringmorethan260.Emergencyservicesincludingpoliceandambulanceserviceswereroutinelyonhandduringthemarathon,soemergencyrespondersarrivedquicklyattheblastsite.

Theinitialblastwasfollowedbyalargescalesecurityoperationwhichresultedintheidentificationoftwosuspects:brothersTamerlanandDzhokharTsarnaev.Tamerlanwaskilledinashootoutwithpoliceon18April,whilehisbrotherwasarrestedthefollowingdayandisawaitingtrial.Thereactiontoeventsrequiredahugeinter-agencyresponseduringwhichlargeamountsofinformationhadtobesharedbetweenvariousgovernmentagencies.

CommunicationsDuringthecrisis,MissionCriticalVoicewasessentialandinthiscapacitytheemergencyservicesnetworkBAPERNwaseffective.Emergencyserviceswereabletoquicklytakecontrolofthearea,clearitofciviliansandcasualties,andbeginasweepforfurtherdevices.Concernshavebeenraisedhowever,inrelationtodatasharingandthecapacityforMissionCriticalData.Theemergencyservices were able to communicate verbally but they were not able to share detailed images of the event,leadingtoadisconnectbetweenrespondersinsomeareas.Thiswasparticularlyevidentinthelaterstagesoftheresponsewhenimagesofthebrotherswereavailableandabletobecirculated.

Communicationsresilienceonthepublicnetworksfairedevenlesswell.

TheBostonMarathonwasalarge,plannedeventforwhichliveimageswerebroadcastaroundtheworld.Whilethecommercialnetworkshadaugmentedtheircommunicationsinanticipationofthenumberofpeoplelikelytobeinattendance,theseaugmentationsprovedtobeineffectiveinthewakeofamajorincidentontopofthelargescaleplannedevent.Uponseeingorhearingthenews oftheexplosions,peoplesoughttoimmediatelycontactfriendsandrelativeswhomayhavebeenneartheblast,orfromwhotheyhadbecomeseparated.TheresultantupsurgeinnetworktrafficprovedtobetoomuchforthecommercialnetworksoperatedbyVerizonWireless,AT&TandSprintNextel.Aninterviewwithonememberofthepublicstated,“[Therewas]nodataserviceonmycellphone.Novoiceservice.IcouldgetlimitedtextmessagesandIwasgettinglotsofbrokentextsfrom my family44.”

43 Formoreinformationsee:http://pdf.911dispatch.com.s3.amazonaws.com/bapern_on_t-band_may2013.pdf44http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq3wlyWeqMs

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Thecommercialnetworkswerenotexpectingaterroristattackanddidnothavethesamelevelofresiliencebuiltintothem,leavingBostonresidentsunabletocontactfriendsandrelatives,ortogetup-to-dateinformationontheincident.ResilientnetworkssuchasBAPERN,whichdidremainoperational,areessentialtofacilitatingcommunicationandminimisingconcernandconfusioninthewakeofsuchincidents.

“To say BAPERN radio communications was crucial during the week of the [Boston] Marathon bombings is an understatement. BAPERN was the primary means of communication – not only did it help coordinate the local, state and federal response, but it got critical officer safety issues out to the officers on the street. To lose that ability would be a tremendous loss of law enforcement in Massachusetts.” – Brookline Police Chief Daniel C. O’Leary45

ConclusionBAPERNwasabletoeffectivelydeliverMCVinadifficultsituationwithahugenumberofrespondersinvolvedandwherethecommercialnetworksbecameoverloaded.Itremainedbroadlyeffectivethroughouttheincident.ItslimitationsasaTETRAnetworkmadeitdifficulttoshareanddispensesomeimportantMCDinformation,however,inparticularimagesofthesuspects.Areviewoftheincident46, suggested that the advantages to the emergency services of having broadband capability ontheemergencyservicesnetworkincludedenablingbombdisposalexpertstocoordinatewithlocalofficialsonthegroundusinghighresolutionimaging,andenablinghealthofficialstomonitorupto20patients’vitalsignsontheirSmartPhonessimultaneously47.Nonetheless,inthewordsofCantonPoliceChiefKennethBerkowitz48,“Withsomanyagenciesinvolved,BAPERNwasahugepieceofthepuzzle.Communicationswasonethingwedidn’thavetoworryabout.It’sanassetwecan’taffordtolose.”

Key Lessons

• Networksneedtobeabletocopewithlargescalesurgesfollowingunexpectedincidentsatevents wherenetworktrafficisalreadyaboveaveragelevels

• Broadbandcapabilityandtheabilitytoshareimagesisincreasinglyimportanttoemergency services

• Inabilitytocommunicatecanleadtoconfusionandconcernamongstthepublicandmakethe incidentmoredifficulttomanage

• Commercialnetworksarenotasresilientasdedicatednetworks

45http://pdf.911dispatch.com.s3.amazonaws.com/bapern_on_t-band_may2013.pdf46 http://www.govtech.com/public-safety/How-Could-FirstNet-Have-Helped-in-the-Boston-Marathon-Bombing.html47 http://www.govtech.com/public-safety/How-Could-FirstNet-Have-Helped-in-the-Boston-Marathon-Bombing.html48 Ibid.

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CASE STUDY 2: Cumbria FloodsLocation: Cumbria, United Kingdom

Date: 18-20 November, 2009

Networks in UseAirwaveNetwork,Commercialmobileandbroadbandnetworks.

The EventHighlevelsofrainfallinNovember2009sawriversbursttheirbanksandmanytownssuffersevereflooding.OnWednesday18November,theRiverEdenburstitsbanksandoverthefollowingdaysmany residents in Cumbrian towns including Cockermouth, Keswick and Appleby were evacuated as waterlevelscontinuedtorise.On20NovemberabridgeinWorkingtoncollapsedduetoflooddamage,causingthedeathofPCBillBarkerwhohadclosedthebridgeandwasdivertingtrafficawayfromit.Thepotentialriskofthebridgebeinglosthadbeenrecognised,yetthefactthatakeycommunicationscablewasconnectedtoit,andwaslostwhenthebridgewaslost,hadbeenoverlooked.Haditbeenconsideredproperly,manyessentialcommunicationscouldhavebeenre-routed.AccordingtotheMetOfficereport2,239homeswereaffected(PCBarkerwastheonlyfatality).

CommunicationsThebridgecollapseinWorkingtonhadaseriesofknock-oneffects.Physicaldamagetothecommunicationsinfrastructureledtoafailureoffixedtelephonenetworks,publicnetworksandbroadbandconnections.Peoplewereunabletomakecalls,sendemailsorexchangeinformationfiles.Thesefailureshadseriousimplicationsforthearea.OfparticularnoteisthefailureofATMs,whichrequireanetworkconnectioninordertodetermineuseraccounts,theamountofmoneythatcustomerscanwithdraw,andtodeductthesumsfromtheirbankaccountsaccordingly.Withthesecommunicationsdown,peoplewereunabletowithdrawcash.Thissituationwasexacerbatedbythefactthatascardreadersarealsodependentoncommunicationstechnologytooperate,peoplewereleftunablepayforfoodandotheressentialservices.TheEmergencyServicesNetworkmanagedby Airwave operated throughout, enabled by the availability of support vehicles with mobile base stationsbeingdeployedquicklytomitigatedamagetopermanentinfrastructure.

Key Lessons

• Lackoftechnologicalunderstandingofhowcommunicationsworkandwhatsystemsare dependentonthemmeansthattheirimportanceisoftenoverlooked

• Lossofcommunications–includingthroughdamagetophysicalinfrastructure–needstobe factored in to resilience planning more robustly

• Theabilitytoquicklyrepairdamagedcommunicationsinfrastructure,ortoprovidetemporary mobileinfrastructurewherepermanenthardwarehasbeendamaged,isessentialtoresilience. Thisisoftenoverlookedamidapriorityfocusonnetworksecurity,butisequallyimportant

• Broadbandandinternetaccessisbecomingincreasinglyimportantforsociety.Lackofsuch communicationscanresultinseriousproblems,ofwhichthefinancialtransactionissueshere arejustoneexample

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Cockermouth High Street in Cumbria, November 2009, after torrential rain caused rivers to burst their banks

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Voice and Appropriate FrequenciesIn terms of resilience, there is a strong argument for separating the voice function from the data requirement function of a network. The greater the data requirements, the higher up the frequency band the ESN will need to operate. This mirrors commercial networks which, since the 2G networks of the early 1990s have gradually migrated up the frequencies and are currently moving increasingly to 4G networks, including LTE, which are able to provide mobile web access, mobile high-definition TV access, video conferencing and data-intensive gaming services. Higher frequencies do not suit voice well: even on most 4G phones, voice is still carried over lower, 2G frequencies (though this may become less common in future as more voice functions move to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) platforms such as that used by Skype).

TETRA and even VHF frequencies work well for voice. The 700MHz band it is hoped will be allocated to PPDR use across Europe at the World Radiocommunications Conference in 2015 represents a ‘sweet spot’ of frequencies that are suitable for both voice and data requirements (but are less attractive to commercial operators than 3G and 4G/LTE).

On the other side of the argument, it is also worth remembering that the TETRA frequencies currently allocated by NATO to public safety services in NATO countries were released for this use following the end of the Cold War, when they were no longer required for military use49. The use of these frequencies by the emergency services is not, therefore, because the emergency services have end-user requirements specific to what those frequencies can deliver, but because

those frequencies were available. To some extent, technology was developed to fit around them50.

SummaryHigh resilience requirements apply to extreme situations only. Politicians and taxpayers have every right to question whether it is economically viable to fund a system in which the full functionality available during routine, day-to-day operations will also be available in extremis. They may consider that (politically and operationally) it is worth taking the risk that there are times when the network will operate sub-optimally, or may even fail completely. A robust priority user agreement that ensures emergency services communications take precedence over those of the public and other users would go some way to mitigating the risks of operating the network over commercial bearers, but would still signify a lesser level of resilience than is available at present.

It is important that the compromises being made are fully understood, and that the politicians who make them are willing to stand up and be counted when the next major incident calls for a review into the communications challenges it faced.

If resilience cannot be maintained across all functionality of the network, across MCD as well as MCV, at the very least a highly resilient voice net would enable basic communications to continue when all other means were unavailable. This would ensure communication from control room to control room or from Strategic Coordinating Group to Strategic Coordinating Group at a national as well as local level. It would represent a practical model of some communication being better than none when the commercial networks fail and should be strongly considered.

49 ItisimportanttobearinmindthatNATOgavenoguidanceonwhatshouldbedonewiththespectrum,norhow‘publicsafetyservices’shouldbe interpreted;differentcountrieshaveapproacheditindifferentways.TheUKchosetousethefrequenciestoreplacetheexistingPoliceradionetwork50 S.BellandR.Cox,ibid

Emergency services rescue simulated air crash victims in a multi-agency training exercise in Hampshire

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Conclusions and Recommendations1. During Business as Usual operations, the basic

requirements of the ESN are those set out in Chapter I for Mission Critical Voice and Mission Critical Data. Security, coverage and contingent capacity should not fall below the levels specified for the Airwave Network.

2. High resilience requirements apply to extreme situations only, during which it might have to be accepted (politically, as well as operationally) that the full functionality of the usual emergency services networks will not, and perhaps should not be expected to be, fully available in extremis. The consequences of the compromises should be admitted, however, and discussed fully so that the necessary mitigating strategies can be planned for and put in place.

3. A highly resilient voice net capable of providing MCV run over public-sector owned or assured spectrum would enable basic communications to continue when all other means of communication is compromised. It would represent a practical model of some communication being better than none when the commercial networks fail. The more data usage becomes normalised, however, the less appetite there will be for accepting the loss of MCD in extreme situations.

4. If the ESN is not run over public sector owned spectrum, the second best option is to attempt to seek robust Service Level Agreements that ensure ruthless pre-emption and priority user agreements allowing emergency services communications to take precedence over those of the public and other users. This will be essential to any network operated partly or entirely over commercial bearers and the penalties for non-compliance should be made clear.

5. Contingency capacity on the networks, whether this is permanently available or provided by temporary capacity that can be deployed quickly when needed, is an essential part of communications resilience. Maintaining contingency capacity on the networks at all times for use in extremis is undeniably a financial burden, but there are high risks associated with not doing so. Looking at ways to release additional capacity when needed, and increasing the provision for temporary solutions such as mobile base stations are a practical option that will help to mitigate any resilience compromises.

6. If there is a move towards a greater role for commercial bearers, it will be important to ensure that assured capacity will be guaranteed to the emergency services in times of need; this will have to be weighed against the commercial operators’ imperative to keep their customers happy (i.e. connected). For this reason, migration to a commercial bearer might be practical only with a ‘fall back’ additional capability retained within the public sector.

7. At present, the Emergency Services undergo limited training on how to best utilize the available talk groups, how to switch from one talk group to another, how to maintain net discipline in order to keep non-essential traffic to a minimum, and how to warn and inform the public on best use of communications during emergencies. Increasing training to account for this, and more planning on how the public could be informed to take mitigating action when network capacity is limited, will need to be factored into emergency planning if the emergency services are competing with other users for valuable capacity following an incident51.

51 See:http://www.wireless-mag.com/Features/20512/Efficiency__effectiveness_and_the_spending_squeeze.aspx,lastaccessed23May2012

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ANNEX 1: Key Organisations

British APCO Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials. A non-profit organisation founded in June 1993, which provides a forum for professionals in the field of communications who are part of the emergency services.

Emergency Services Mobile Communications ProgrammeA Home Office-led programme run on behalf of emergency services across Britain. The ESMCP was established to examine the future communications requirements of the E&PSS, and to decide, manage and unify the replacement of the Airwave network after 2016. Specific responsibilities include agreeing future requirements of E&PSS, balancing functionality with affordability, identifying the need for future spectrum and securing it, tendering the replacement of Airwave and overseeing the migration from existing services and networks on to their successors.

The Office of Communications (Ofcom)Often referred to as Ofcom, it is the UK regulator with a remit that applies to telecommunications such as mobile networks, communications, television and broadband. It helps to maintain a competitive market.

Public Safety Radio Communications Project (PSRCP)The PSRCP was established in 1996. It was led initially by the Home Office and from 1998 by the Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO) on behalf of Police services across England, Wales and Scotland. The PSRCP oversaw the replacement of locally managed police analogue radio systems with a new, centrally procured system that could be shared on a national basis with other public safety organisations. In 2000, PITO signed a contract with British Telecommunications Plc (O2), which through the creation of Airwave Solutions Ltd designed, built, financed and operated the fixed assets for this new system.

Public Safety Spectrum Policy Group (PSSPG)An independently chaired, interdepartmental group reporting to the UK Spectrum Strategy Committee. The PSSPG comprises representatives from Ofcom, Home Office, Scottish Executive, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and Department of Health, with representatives from Other Government Departments attending on an ad hoc basis. The PSSPG advises UKSSC and Ofcom on the broad spectrum requirements to meet the current and future essential needs of E&PSS users, sets policy and advises Ofcom on access to E&PSS spectrum, identifies surplus spectrum and recommends the timing and manner for release.

UK Spectrum Strategy CommitteeA Cabinet Office official committee responsible for cross-Government spectrum management. The UKSSC draws up policy and plans for the future allocation of spectrum to meet the needs of public and private sectors (with an emphasis on the provision of vital services and the generation of wealth), oversees the management and regulation of radio spectrum, ensures that plans are correctly implemented, that efficient use is made of available capacity and that spectrum is used to the best national advantage.

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ANNEX 2: Spectrum Harmonisation and OwnershipThe Airwave Network operates on electromagnetic spectrum frequency bands owned by NATO and reserved – or ‘harmonised’– across Europe for use by Emergency and Public Safety Services (E&PSS). The NATO frequency bands currently used by E&PSS are suitable for voice and limited data, but are not suitable for operating more data intensive networks.

At present, no spectrum is reserved for E&PSS use across Europe in bands that are suitable for more data intensive networks, but it is hoped that at the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) in 2015, 20MHz will be allocated for the use of Public Protection and Disaster Relief – PPDR – in the range of 694-700MHz52. These frequencies have been described as a ‘sweet spot’, as they are good for both Mission Critical Voice and Mission Critical Data requirements53.

Harmonisation per se has no great advantages for resilience or for interoperability. It is not the case, for example, that the UK police and the French police would not be able to speak to one another during a joint operation because they are not both operating in the same harmonized band. There are a host of technological solutions available for connecting systems working on different frequencies, which projects such as the EU-funded SECRICOM54 have explored further. Its advantages are purely economic.

Harmonisation would, potentially bringing down unit costs of hardware across Europe. Commercial mobile telephony network operators prefer to operate in harmonised bands so that their customers can travel internationally without needing a variety of mobile phones. Similarly, mobile phone manufacturers would prefer to produce 10 million identical handsets that can be sold anywhere in the world than ten different handsets, one million of which could be sold in ten different countries.

E&PSS networks harmonised across Europe would enable handset manufacturers to manufacture handsets that could be used in several countries, potentially reducing unit costs. In Great Britain there are approximately 300,000 Airwave users, with a typical Airwave handset (which has a life cycle of five to seven years) costing around £300. Such costs may seem high, but compare this with SmartPhones bought as pay-as-you-go handsets, which can range from £250 to more than £700 for the latest models and are rarely used for as long as seven years. Commercial handsets are heavily subsidised by the cost of network contracts, and it is therefore debatable how much cheaper harmonisation would enable E&PSS handsets to be.

It may not be feasible for the emergency services to work on entirely off-the-shelf technology (for example, because handsets may need to be ruggedized), but the harmonisation of emergency services across Europe would push up the number of users considerably. In the United States, harmonisation of first responder organisations on a nationwide public safety LTE network, has seen such benefits, though it is important to note that the introduction of the system has been backed up by $7 billion of government funding55.

52 Seealsohttp://apps.ero.dk/eccnews/aug-2013/the-700MHz-band.html,lastaccessed21March201453BAPCO,RequirementsforAssuredMissionCriticalVoiceandfutureharmonisedSpectrumforUKPublicSafety,12November2013,availableat: http://www.bapco.org.uk/content/news/requirements-for-assured-mission-critical-voice-and-future-harmonised-spectrum-for-uk-public-safety/54 See:http://www.secricom.eu/,lastaccessed15May201255GeorgeMalim,‘LTEPutsDataontheStreets’,Wireless,March/April2012,pp19-22

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TETRA NetworksTerrestrial Trunked Radio Network. TETRA has been set by the European Telecommunications Standardisation Institute (ETSI) to be the European standard for Professional Mobile Radio (PMR) operators, including public safety organisations56. Not every country in Europe has adopted it, though the majority have. TETRA is a tried and proven technology that operates effectively in Great Britain and other countries including Germany – the Airwave Network is a TETRA network. TETRA complies with the needs of Mission Critical Voice as set out in the BAPCO Positioning Paper as it provides:

• NarrowbandMCV • WidebandMCV • Datamobileradiotechnology

TETRA 2Features a high speed data connection and also includes a TETRA enhanced data service (TEDS). This allows the sharing of videos and images and results in being able to deliver Mission Critical Data as well as voice. TETRA 2 is fully compatible with TETRA.

TetrapolA PMR system that is used primarily in Europe and is currently used in 34 countries. Originally developed by the French company Matra Communications, it is now being further developed by the Tetrapol Forum and the Tetrapol users forum. It has not been recognised as an ETSI standard, has slower data rates and is not as efficient in spectrum usage as TETRA57.

2G (2nd Generation wireless technology)2nd generation wireless digital technology replaced 1G analogue technology in the early 1990s. It enabled voice communications between users but also represented the first time that information such as text messages could be shared and received, though data transmission was limited. The GPRS Network and EDGE Networks in the UK were 2G networks.

3G (3rd Generation wireless technology)3rd generation – 3G – networks continued the data standards of the EDGE Network. 3G is more costly to operate than EDGE but allows for greater data transfer speeds.

4G/LTE (4th Generation/Long term evolution) 4G/LTE refers to the fourth generation of mobile phone and communications standards. 4G is largely applied to SmartPhones and tablets which act as mini computers. At the moment, there is little LTE

ANNEX 3: Networks

56 Seehttp://www.etsi.org/technologies-clusters/technologies/tetra,accessed11April201457 FormoreinformationonTetrapolsee;http://www.bakom.admin.ch/themen/technologie/01220/index.html?lang=enLastAccessed27thMarch2014

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infrastructure in the UK in comparison with other countries such as the US, though this is set to improve over the next few years: migrating the E&PSS onto LTE frequencies will become more realistic between 2015-2020. When network infrastructure is fully rolled out in the UK, 4G will make more efficient use of spectrum than 3G (3rd generation) and will allow increased exchange of large amounts of information via wireless connections.

5G (Future evolution) The fifth generation of mobile communications is still in the future: at present, no international 5G development projects have officially been launched, but there is discussion about what it will be and how it will be defined. The ITU (International Telecommunication Union) asserts that a 5G standard may be introduced around 2020. Interoperable, ubiquitous and dynamic communications are key objectives for 5G communication system and applications.

Some general requirements for 5G are: high system capacity to support traffic grow, high peak data rate (e.g. > 10Gbps), improved energy efficiency, longer battery life and robustness to disasters. 5G technologies are likely to address services such as mobile-to-mobile (M2M) data transfer, safety and lifeline systems (collision, accident and distress alerts) and remote controls.

• IntheUK,evenwhenusinga4Gnetwork,theaudioonmostmobilephonesstill travels across a 2G network

• Thereisnoreasonwhydatacannotgoacrosssomefrequenciesandvoice messages across another on the same handset

Effective command and control of an incident, provided by reliable and resilient communications, ensures a better emergency response