In message , at 16:00:22 on Wed, 31 Jul
2019, Someone Somewhere remarked:

No, because the emergency services contract (which this is
piggy-backed upon) is 4G.

Is this something to replace the tetra based network in the UK?
*Yes. And it's also much delayed. But that's not really a surprise
for a* large government IT project!

It's also going to be a total waste of time and money. Tetra just
worked, why change it..?
I think the problem is it's proprietary, and rather old. Replacing
worn out equipment and paying ongoing licence fees, was regarded as
less effective than using an 'open source' idea like 4G.

Wasn't it also the lack of development of the standard and basically
being stuck on GPRS like speeds?

Yes, that's part of it. And the new handsets are also half the price of
Airwave ones.

What's concerning is that they are still rolling out a 4G solution when
5G is already here...

The Emergency Network requires the whole country to be flooded with 4G.
They aren't even sufficiently close to that yet. Let alone start from
scratch with 5G.

The original switch-off date for Airwave was supposed to be the end of
2019. Many don't expect that to happen for a least five years, and
that's sticking with 4G.
--
Roland Perry