Motorola Solutions received a notice from the United Kingdom (UK) Home Office seeking to continue services from the Airwave TETRA network through 2029 via a three-year contract extension that is expected to be worth at least $748 million, Motorola Solutions officials stated last week during the company’s quarterly earnings call.

Motorola Solutions Chairman and CEO Greg Brown said he believes the plans for the three-year extension notice for Airwave—the nationwide TETRA network that provides mission-critical communications to UK public-safety personnel—is an indication of the ongoing need for land-mobile-radio (LMR) systems. Prior to the extension notice, the contract for the Motorola Solutions-owned Airwave network was scheduled to expire at the end of 2026.

“I think it confirms our belief all along in the durability, longevity, and … criticality of mission-critical LMR—particularly, in this case, Airwave,” Brown said during a teleconference call with industry analysts. “It reaffirms the longstanding need of how critical that technology is, and [Airwave is] one of the best-performing—from a network standpoint—emergency networks in the world.”

Extending Airwave service through the end of the decade was expected, as Home Office officials have acknowledged that the much-delayed Emergency Services Network (ESN)—the public-safety LTE network that is supposed to replace Airwave—likely will not be ready before the end of 2029. Motorola Solutions was a lead vendor for the ESN but formally exited the project last year. The UK Home Office conducted a procurement, and a replacement vendor could be named in August, according to the program director heading the ESN initiative.

Brown said that Motorola Solutions recorded the three-year Airwave extension in its company backlog as being worth $748 million, which he described as a “worst-case scenario.” Under this scenario, charge-control rates imposed last year by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) that cut Motorola Solutions’ annual Airwave revenues by more than 40% would remain in place through 2029.

Of course, Motorola Solutions has contested the CMA decision, and Brown outlined the company’s efforts to appeal the Airwave price controls.

“The CMA issued their final decision. We appealed to the CAT—the Competition Appeals Tribunal. We lost that,” Brown said. “As a result, [we] appealed to the … UK Court of Appeal to see if they’ll hear that case. We would expect to get clarity on that either in May or June.

“Having said that, we will continue to defend our position on the circumstances and conditions that extended Airwave, and we will defend ourselves accordingly.”

In an SEC filing, Motorola Solutions indicated that the three-year Airwave extension—a notice provided by the UK Home Office on March 13—largely fills the financial gap left by the CMA price controls.

“Our backlog for Airwave services contracted with the UK Home Office through December 31, 2026 was previously reduced by $777 million to align with the Charge Control,” according to Motorola Solutions’ 10-Q report. “In the first quarter of 2024, as a result of the UK Home Office’s notice of a contract extension pursuant to their Deferred National Shutdown Notice, we have recorded additional backlog of $748 million to reflect the incremental three years of services.”

This SEC filing also provides additional details about the timing of the Motorola Solutions appeal of the CMA price-control decision.

“On April 11, 2024, we filed proceedings in the UK High Court challenging the decision of the UK Home Office to issue the Deferred National Shutdown Notice as being in breach of applicable UK procurement and public law,” the Motorola Solutions 10-Q states. “The backlog related to the incremental years of service contemplated in the Deferred National Shutdown Notice could change, depending on the outcome of the proceedings.”