FirstNet official clarifies evaluation process, public-safety pricing goals

Not only will each offeror propose its own public-safety adoption targets, it will play a key role in defining who qualifies as a public-safety entity that is eligible for prioritized service on the network. FirstNet’s RFP specifies that police, fire and EMS personnel will be in the “primary user group,” but the FirstNet contractor will be asked to determine who should be included in the “extended primary user group.”

“Disincentive payments are obviously tied to those adoption targets—whatever is agreed to, when we get to contract,” Mitchell said. “That’s critical, and that’s basically going to be the forecast for the next 25 years, and we want to make sure that we’re smart about it. So, we’ve opened that up and allowed offerors to come back and propose that to us.”

When asked about the potential impact that multiple body sensors or Internet of Things (IoT) devices could have on the public-safety subscription targets, Mitchell acknowledged the issue but declined to share FirstNet’s position on the matter.

“It’s part of our model, but I can’t disclose that specifically,” Mitchell said.

The contractor’s public-safety definition also could impact pricing on the network. Under the RFP, public-safety entities will get “most-favored customer” pricing. This means that FirstNet public-safety subscribers would get the best pricing for “like services”—a term that will need to be clarified during the evaluation process, Mitchell said.

“It’s for ‘like services,’” he said. “They [the offeror teams] are going to have to bring it back to us and tell us what that actually is to them.”

Although FirstNet has extended the deadline for offerors to submit bids by a month since the RFP was first released in January, officials have continued to state that the organization hopes to sign a deal with the contractor by Nov. 1.