Missing FirstNet question may shed light on organization’s early hiring practices

However, it appeared that Ginn and Farrill were taking a business-oriented approach to FirstNet in the early days, with the stated intent of making tangible progress on a massive project—one that had been talked about for years but did not make progress while being led by the unfunded Public Safety Spectrum Trust (PSST).

Of course, if you are starting a business, it is normal—even advisable—to turn to people that you know, trust and are confident have the knowledge base necessary to do the job. That appears to be the approach that Ginn and Farrill took, and they did not try to hide it. After all, consultant Peters Suh made a presentation at FirstNet’s initial meeting, so there would have been no way for the full board to approve his hiring before the meeting.

Whether this approach was good or bad is debatable, but it did get everybody to sit and take notice that FirstNet was not planning to be a sleepy government organization that would sit on its hands, holding meetings that largely were focused on bylaws and procedures. Right or wrong, Ginn and Farrill seemed determined to make this network a reality by quickly getting people on board to do the engineering work necessary to make the broadband network a reality.

And, it should be noted that there were no public statements from NTIA that any of this was a problem. On the outside, it was assumed that all of these hiring actions were done with NTIA’s blessing, although there were rumblings that some within NTIA were not comfortable with the arrangement.

One aspect of Gordon’s story focused on the amount of money being paid to these consultants/contractors, citing an average rate of $172 per hour. Whether this pricing was exorbitant is impossible for me to judge. But it should be noted that market prices for any service is based on supply and demand, and the reality is that there are so many entities that want LTE expertise—particularly carriers with very deep pockets—that significant funds are needed to acquire it from qualified individuals.

(And this problem is not going away. FirstNet CTO Ali Afrashteh recently noted the challenges he faces to attract LTE talent for his technical staff on a government salary when having to compete against carriers.)

But this landscape changed significantly after then-board member Paul Fitzgerald in April 2013 alleged that the FirstNet board did not act with transparency and that some members may have conflicts of interest. Although an internal board committee ruled that Fitzgerald’s lack-of-transparency claims were unfounded, the conflict-of-interest claims were sent to the Inspector General (IG) office for investigation.