There is now a new report dated 8th March 2023 (prepared by the National Audit Office) called “Progress with Delivering The Emergency Services Network”, where according to what we understand from the report, and also read in the public domain, the TETRA-based Airwave network will still need to be replaced the future, but the Emergency Services Network (ESN) is not expected to be ready by 2026, and will more likely not be fully completed until 2029.
During this time, the emergency services will continue to rely on the TETRA-based Airwave network, and this will still continue to provide essential voice communications services.
In summary, for the United Kingdom (UK), new Emergency Services Network (ESN) will be rolled out in a number of phases perhaps starting sometime in 2026 with both the existing Airwave TETRA radio system and the new Emergency Services Network (ESN) running partly in parallel dependent on the different network migration plans until the final migration and switch over is completed in 2029.
The switch over to Emergency Services Network (ESN) is only applicable to the United Kingdom (UK), the other Tetra Networks in other counties will be subjected to their own Network upgrade plans.