IWCE panel reveals steep hill to climb for states choosing opt-out route

Some key takeaways that were shared during the session included:

• Challenging deadlines: Upon receiving the FirstNet plan for his/her state, the governor has 90 days to make the opt-in/opt-out decision. If the governor chooses to opt out, the state must develop a plan to build out a public-safety broadband network—and select a vendor to execute the work—within 180 days. That second step is particularly difficult, especially given the procurement processes that many states have to follow.
• Potential delays during approval process: After working hard to meet the above deadlines, an opt-out state has to submit its plan to the FCC for approval. If the FCC approves the plan, then the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) must approve the plan and grant a spectrum lease before the state can proceed with the project. Panelist Anna Gomez—a former NTIA official and now a partner in the law firm of Wiley Rein—estimated that it will take the FCC and the NTIA six months each to evaluate a state’s proposal under a “very aggressive” timetable. In other words, the opt-out state and its vendor could be in limbo for a year or more while waiting for approvals from the FCC and NTIA, with no assurance that either one will be granted.
• Potential changes in the carrier LTE landscape: One of the panelists in the session was Anthony Martwick of Verizon Enterprise Solutions. Martwick reiterated Verizon’s support of public safety—indeed, most political observers doubt that Congress would have reallocated the D Block without the help of Verizon and AT&T—and rattled off a number of the carrier’s initiatives that would be of interest to public safety. Within this list, Martwick matter-of-factly mentioned, “Public safety priority on our network—we’re working on that.” To date, public safety has never been able to get the kind of priority access it wants on a carrier network. Martwick offered no details regarding this statement, but carriers offering public safety the kind of priority it wants would definitely impact the competitive landscape for first-responder customers, which would impact the business plans for FirstNet and any opt-out states (just ask the city of Charlotte, which abandoned its public-safety LTE deployment in part because carriers dramatically dropped LTE prices in its area).

After the session, there were many discussions about the possible implications of the opt-out process, particularly the relationship among key players. For instance, FirstNet officials have stated openly that they believe the best network can be developed if all states opt in to the FirstNet plan. Given that FirstNet is part of NTIA, would NTIA be reluctant to grant the spectrum lease to an opt-out state against FirstNet’s wishes? Any answer would be pure speculation, but it is an interesting question.