Bruce Ansell

Tech Lead - Interworking Airwave/ESN​

Tech Lead - Onboarding and DNSP

April 2016 - Present

Handpicked to play a critical role in an LTE-based emergency services communications programme with national reach. Responsible for ownership and construction of the technical architecture of interworking, DNSP and control rooms. Technical authority for the £multi-million related interworking project which is essential to the transition from the legacy narrowband network to broadband services. Remit includes requirements definition, processes and supplier management. Leader of a small, focused team. 

• Key driving force behind delivery of next generation emergency services mobile communications system for the 3 emergency services (police, fire and rescue, and ambulance) and other public safety users.
• Successfully advancing the Interworking workstream, a world leading technological challenge; although ongoing the project is currently on track.
• Providing a solution to enable network interworking between the legacy Tetra airwave system and Emergency Services Network ESN LTE network.
• Governing the deployment, configuration, integration and testing of public network services provided by the DNSP into the ESN.
• Ensuring the work complies to best practice, security, legal and policy standards by providing best in class technical advice and support.

Capability Manager

May 2014 - April 2016

Tasked to develop and optimise the security and smart systems business within Selex, leveraging technical and commercial aptitude. Market development and market facing activities were a key focus, including representing the business to industry leaders and government representatives. Required to set strategy and develop new ideas, concepts and detailed technical proposals. The role operated in close conjunction with a broad stakeholder network, internal and external. Managed a 5-strong technical bid team.

• Lead Engineer for a bid for a £multi-billion government project in partnership with British Telecom and for a combined LTE and TETRA airborne solution as part of an A2G service for the UK ESN.
• Enabled programme delivery of new public safety LTE technology through the Selex Perseus product range., operating in a support capacity.
• Advanced business development goals; developed concepts and technical bids/proposals for Selex ES in close collaboration with Selex Development Team based in Florence, Genoa and Milan.
• Increased the competitive edge of the business, with critical input into Selex product development, supporting 3GPP, ETSI and TCCA representatives.
• Led the team in hitting £multi-million Selex-ES targets within the Security and Smart Systems market sectors, contributing strongly to ongoing profitability and revenue growth.

Lead Engineer

Jan 2010 - May 2014

Led and directed a first-rate support service provided to the regional business development teams. Accountable for the planning and implementation of core and radio access networks, sub-systems and subscribers across 3g/4g, TETRA, HF, UHF, WLAN and SATCOM. Lead Engineer for major bids, managing 2 x Trials Engineers and 2 x Bid Engineers.

• Optimised Exelis Defence product offer as technical SME during design, development and rollout of structured engineering solutions; notably involved in the development of 3rd party applications to improve existing product.
• Key catalyst behind sales results and revenue generation, delivering comprehensive support on pre-sales operations, including ownership of trials and demonstration projects.
• Pivotal role in the acquisition of a teaming agreement with an international security network provider for SpearNet radio.
• Won a £multi-million contract for a high-capacity data radio to the Royal Danish Army and subsequently spearheaded technical integration and successful delivery.
• Lead Engineer on the UK MoD ESII study tasks for interoperability, generic waveform portability and also porting of the HCDR waveform to a software defined (SCA compliant) platform.
• Delivered a strong bid response for a £12m European Defence contract, including a short-listed equipment trial.
• Central to a £multi-million bid for the MoD with an iridium netted solution and waveform porting under SCA guidelines and a successful £multi-million bid and deployment of a European military communications product.

Network design engineer

Nov 2009 - Feb 2010

Defined the design process and project costs for each site on a 3,500-site rollout of a single click device used to make telephone calls over an IP network and mobile network. The role demanded specialist knowledge of WLAN technologies in the design and rollout of 802 11b/g/n systems. Managed a team of 10 x Field Support Engineers and 2 RF Planners.

• Primary driver of a large-scale, complex technology rollout, incorporating Dublin Terminal 2, BrightHouse logistic support centres and public retail sites.
• Enabled seamless rollout of the indoor wireless network, with a fundamental role in the development of a new methodology to automate all design, planning and management processes, while enabling full performance analysis.
• Senior accountability for the coordination of all RF coverage analysis using IBWave RF-vu and Ekahua Site Survey design tools.

Systems Engineer

Apr 2009 - Oct 2009

The Airwave network is a secure digital radio network with a £500million deployment cost and is designed to carry voice and data communications. The service offers enhanced levels of coverage across the whole of England, Wales and Scotland, to emergency and public safety users. Working within the ‘Solutions and Technology group, the primary role was to review, test and document the new features and parameters provided by the equipment supplier for the network. Liaising with the end user to define the acceptance and operational performance aspects of those features. Relating to features covering disaster recovery through to aliasing solutions, engineered to release through a Stage-gate 5 step process.
Responsible as Technical Lead for implementation of the resilient VSAT GBN solution for remote sites within the Airwave network, with a dedicated project value of £1.8million.

Systems Engineer

Aug 2000 - Oct 2007

Within the Major Projects support group assigned to Public Safety projects worldwide for development, implementation, and deployment of integrated processes; establishing a system of monitoring metrics, identifying process improvement opportunities; and leading the Engineering Process within the projects in early rollout phases. Continued support to the projects is carried out within a Solutions Architect role for problem solving elements. Supporting engineer for data applications testing within the subscriber development team, providing engineering feedback for functional specifications through to the support of production and installation in the field, across voice, short data and packet data applications.

Network RF design engineer

Apr 1997 - Aug 2000

Member of the Tetra Design Team
Working with RF Network Planning department, RF and Network Optimisation GSM, 3g - o2, Orange, Vodafone

Design Engineer

1993 - 1998

Lead special projects comms engineer

Electronics support engineer -

Aug 1989 - Oct 1993

Electronics support engineer -

Weapons Engineer / Y Troop electronics combat engineer

Mar 1982 - Aug 1989

The role involved maintaining the Royal Navy’s hi-tech weapons, sensors and communications equipment to the highest standards to ensure they are always in the best working order for all conditions.
Primary focus and additional training was on electronic warfare systems.

Bruce is the "go to" engineer for a lot of our business development activities. His knowledge of tactical communication systems is excellent and he has a tremendous ability to put together impressive demonstrations for potential customers. His relaxed and confident manner on a product launch video left us all very impressed. Bruce is very hard working but still finds time to be a really nice guy!

Bruce is a versatile engineering manager with broad RF and Telecomns Network ability. He is has excellent skills at conducting network performance, data analysis, system optimisation activities and producing management reports.

Bruce is an entreperneur. He is highly creative and able to generate and deliver customised RF solutions against any requirement/challenge he works on..

Bruce is an outstanding engineer who I wouldn’t hesitate to have in my team at any opportunity. He is a well-rounded individual with a creative mind which is supported by his flexible and good humoured nature. A pleasure to work with an asset to any team or company

Bruce is one of the most creative solutions orientated systems engineers I have ever had the pleasure to meet. His raport and ability to explain complex ideas to colleagues and customers is second to none and he maintains an exceptional knowledge of the latest technologies and techniques

Bruce is an extremely talented engineer who can be relied on to find the right solution at the right time. Bruce uniquely combines the ability to be extremely practical yet demonstrate immense analytical skills to satisfy a task. recommended.

Bruce is one of the best system engineers that I have worked with. He has worked on many very large national radio systems, and has often been used to get networks up and running where others have failed.

Very approchable and well known in the industry. Very good with customers.