Capgemini has been appointed system integrator for Sweden’s next-generation emergency communications network, placing the consultancy between government-controlled infrastructure, commercial mobile operators, and multiple technology suppliers as the country prepares to replace its ageing Rakel system.

The Swedish Emergency Network, or SWEN, is being built by the Swedish Civil Defence and Resilience Agency for organisations involved in public safety, healthcare, security, and defence. Capgemini will lead technical integration, system architecture, operational readiness, testing coordination, and security controls across a programme intended eventually to serve the more than 700 organisations using Rakel today.

Unlike the TETRA-based network it will replace, SWEN is designed around broadband communications using 4G and 5G technology. That allows the system to move beyond secure voice towards real-time data, video, positioning, integration with control rooms, and machine-to-machine services, while retaining priority communications for organisations operating during emergencies or periods of heightened national readiness.

The transition will be gradual rather than a single network cutover. Sweden plans testing and validation through 2027, followed by user migration during 2028 and 2029, with all users expected to have moved from Rakel by 2030. During that period, dedicated migration infrastructure will allow users on the old and new systems to communicate with one another.

A hybrid network with public control

Sweden is not building a completely separate national mobile network for emergency services. SWEN instead combines a state-controlled core network and strategically controlled components with commercial 4G and 5G infrastructure, an arrangement intended to provide national coverage without giving up government control over the most sensitive parts of the system.

The Civil Defence and Resilience Agency says the design will also use dedicated frequencies in the 700 MHz band alongside commercial operators’ spectrum. Mission-critical traffic is intended to receive priority, while the public side retains responsibility for defining the security and resilience required when ordinary commercial-service assumptions are no longer adequate.

Capgemini’s integration contract sits across that dividing line. Ericsson has already been selected for the core network, Telia has a contract covering radio access for initial pilots, and Airbus is supplying the migration solution linking SWEN with Rakel. Other procurement remains under way, including the mission-critical services platform, making integration a continuing programme rather than an exercise in assembling a fixed set of components.

Large public-sector technology programmes often become vulnerable at precisely that point. Individual suppliers can deliver components that meet their own specifications while the overall system struggles with interfaces, operational processes, security responsibilities, and transition from legacy technology. Sweden has made the integration layer an explicit workstream rather than leaving coordination to emerge between contracts.

Emergency communications become a data platform

The change from narrowband radio to a broadband platform will alter what connected organisations can do operationally. Emergency services that previously depended primarily on voice can use richer situational information, while health services, municipalities, defence organisations, and other users can exchange video and data or connect applications directly into the communications environment.

That creates additional dependencies alongside the new capabilities. More software, devices, applications, and supplier interfaces enlarge the system that has to remain available during the very incidents likely to place infrastructure under greatest strain. Cybersecurity and network resilience therefore have to be designed around both telecommunications and application behaviour rather than treated as separate layers.

The Swedish agency is also encouraging user organisations to prepare well before migration by reviewing information-sharing requirements, choosing international standards, avoiding unnecessary supplier lock-in, and planning procurement over several years. That approach recognises that replacing a national communications system is as much an organisational migration as a radio-network project.

Funding remains one of the unfinished parts of the programme. Sweden’s government has asked the agency to propose a long-term financing model, while future subscription charges have not been finalised because coverage, resilience requirements, costs, and the eventual user base are still being determined.

The technical destination is nevertheless becoming clearer. SWEN is intended to move critical Swedish communications onto standards-based mobile technology without simply handing the state’s emergency network to ordinary commercial infrastructure, while the hybrid model gives private operators and technology suppliers substantial roles within boundaries established by government.

Capgemini now carries responsibility for making those boundaries work as one operational system. By 2030, success will not be measured merely by whether Rakel has been turned off, but by whether hundreds of organisations can move voice, data, video, and operational information through a more complicated network without losing the reliability that made a dedicated emergency platform necessary in the first place.