Rivada Mercury unveils key partners of team pursuing FirstNet contract

Ganley said that some key components of the Rivada Mercury proposal include “an aggressive rollout schedule for Band 14—we will exceed FirstNet’s requirements in every county in America” and favorable pricing for the traditional public-safety entities of fire, EMS and law enforcement.

“We will have a highly attractive offer for public-safety first-responder use of the network, which is designed to rapidly drive public-safety adoption of the FirstNet network,” Ganley said.

Rivada Mercury also will have special pricing packages for “extended” public-safety user groups, according to Ganley.

“I would say that the extended user group also gets a highly attractive package, but maybe not quite as highly attractive [as the pricing for the primary public-safety users],” he said. “It will be extremely competitive.”

In addition, Rivada Mercury has outlined plans to build a 700 MHz Band 14 LTE system with unprecedented coverage, Ganley said.

“This will have—by some degree—the largest geographic coverage and population coverage of any network in America,” Ganley said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “It will cover a higher percentage of population and a much larger geography than any other network in America.”

And that coverage will not be limited to urban markets, Ganley said.

“The rural guys are going to be very happy with what they see,” he said. “The odd polar bear may not be covered without a deployable, but otherwise, I know rural guys are going to be very happy with what they see, if we win.”

To address those situations when coverage is needed outside the proposed fixed LTE network, Rivada Mercury’s deployable partner is Oceus Networks, Ganley said. Oceus Networks has developed deployable solutions for several pilot projects and early-builder projects, including the high-profile JerseyNet system in New Jersey.

Some in the public-safety community criticized Rivada Networks for its discussions with key state officials about the opt-out alternative, which allows a state or territory to deploy its own radio access network (RAN) instead of letting FirstNet build it. Earlier this year, Rivada Networks was one of five bidders that submitted a response to the RFP issued by the state of New Hampshire.

But Ganley said that Rivada Mercury’s nationwide FirstNet bid is so strong that states and territories will not want to pursue the opt-out alternative.

“As I have said, I don’t think there is going to be any need for any state to opt out; I don’t see it right now,” Ganley said. “Knowing what we have submitted in that FirstNet RFP, there’s going to be no incentive for states to actually opt out.

”Obviously, I can only speak for what’s in our submission. But knowing what’s in our submission, if I was a governor of a state, I would not believe that I would have any incentive or reason to want to opt out.”