Early movers

Most impacted by the current uncertainty are the jurisdictions and vendors associated with the planned early deployments of public-safety LTE. For the most part, these jurisdictions followed a similar path to making their lofty first-responder broadband plans a reality: after securing an FCC waiver to use the 700 MHz broadband spectrum licensed to the PSST, the entities signed a spectrum lease with the PSST and applied for funding through the Broadband Technologies Opportunity Program (BTOP) established under economic-stimulus law.

Of the initial 21 waiver recipients, 20 sought BTOP funding, and seven jurisdictions were awarded grants of varying amounts. Generally, those entities that did not get federal funding were unable to progress, because local and state budgets have been so tight that elected officials are struggling to maintain ongoing programs, much less taking on massive projects like public-safety LTE networks.

BTOP recipients were required to have their projects two-thirds complete within two years after being chosen for the grant program — a milestone that was supposed to be met in August in the San Francisco Bay area and early next year in other locations.

Of course, progress varied for each recipient. Initially, the San Francisco Bay area was expected to have the first operational network, but spectrum issues and political unrest prevented its regional coalition from finalizing a vendor agreement with Motorola until early this year. In Los Angeles County — recipient of the largest public-safety LTE grant in the BTOP program — two RFP processes yielded no vendor contract, and a third bidding process has started.

Better progress was made by other jurisdictions. With hopes of using public-safety LTE to help secure the Democratic National Convention, the city of Charlotte, N.C., was on track to begin operations on its broadband network this summer. Adams County, Colo. — a jurisdiction that includes the city of Denver — and the state of Mississippi were prepared to follow a similar schedule.

Another prominent early mover was Harris County, Texas, which includes the city of Houston. Leveraging non-BTOP federal grant funds, Harris County had enough money to begin public-safety LTE operations this summer, using a spectrum lease from the state of Texas department of public safety.

But all hopes for LTE operations this summer were dashed in the spring, when NTIA instructed entities not to use federal grant funds to install LTE equipment, in an effort to ensure that the FirstNet board would be able to implement its desired nationwide buildout without being encumbered by too many incumbent public-safety LTE networks.

"We have been focused like a laser on not allowing individual, innocent decisions being made now that could affect that cost equation later on, when it comes time to design and develop this network," NTIA Assistant Secretary Lawrence Strickling said last month during a session at the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) conference. "I think it's been hard for people to understand that, if we build out a state here or a series of counties here, we actually can upset the ultimate cost structure of this network by making it more costly, more difficult or actually deterring people from bidding on these projects down the road. … We're trying to do whatever we can to protect the taxpayer investment."