Private company

Airwave

Airwave Solutions Ltd. is a British mobile communication company that operates the Airwave network, a mobile communications network used by Great Britain's emergency services.1

Last updated Oct 18, 2026.

Overview

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Airwave Solutions Ltd. is a British mobile communication company that operates the Airwave network, a mobile communications network used by Great Britain's emergency services. The Airwave network is based on the specialist Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) specification. Airwave was acquired by Motorola Solutions in February 2016 and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary.2

How it started

History

Airwave was established in 2000 by BT as BT Airwave. BT Airwave along with BT Quadrant secured a Public Private Partnership (PPP) contract worth £2.5bn to supply of Professional Mobile Radio (PMR) communications to the police and other ‘blue light’ services.

BT Airwave was part of the BT Wireless division which was spun off from BT Group in 2002 to ultimately become part of

O2 and became Airwave O2 Limited, commonly known as O2 Airwave.

In April 2007, Airwave was acquired by two Macquarie Group investment funds, Macquarie European Infrastructure Fund II (MEIF II) and Macquarie CPPIB Communications Pty Limited, for £1.9 billion.

On 3 December 2015 the company was acquired by Motorola Solutions for £817 million. Some of the payment was deferred to the following year and Macquarie were supporting the transaction.

From Wikipedia’s article on Airwave, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2

Sources

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