FirstNet opts for nationwide acquisition approach for final RFP
In FirstNet’s draft RFP released in April, the organization proposed two possible bid scenarios for an offerer—potentially a single commercial company but more likely a prime contractor heading a team of companies—to bid on the much-anticipated public-safety broadband network: Services offered on a nationwide basis (Category 1) or services offered on a regional basis, covering a geographic region as small as a single state (Category 2), that would then be integrated into the nationwide system.
However, there was considerable confusion within the industry about how the Category 2 integration would work. With today’s resolution, only nationwide bids will be accepted, and any coordination between multiple providers could be done before the RFP response is submitted, instead of trying to get multiple bidders to alter their proposals to deliver a seamless nationwide system after the RFP process is done.
“Partnering is hard, and it’s not easy to create those win-win relationships,” FirstNet board member Barry Boniface said during the meeting. “I think the conversation that we had was that forcing partnerships at the FirstNet level was not the way to go about this but to move this back into the hands of people who are used to partnering.
“[In] every national solution that’s out there today—I don’t care what it is, even if it’s delivering long-distance service—there are partnerships that have been created to deliver those outcomes. Ultimately, what we’ve decided … with this approach is that partnering is better left in the hands of the people who are used to doing it on a day-to-day basis, rather than being forced [by FirstNet].