Rivada Networks sues to contests bid disqualification in Mexico, alleges procurement-related robbery
FirstNet plans call for the contractor to use 20 MHz of spectrum, while the Red Compartida project would provide the winning contractor with access to 90 MHz of contiguous airwaves. In addition, Red Compartida is designed to provide wholesale consumer broadband services, while the focus of FirstNet is to serve public-safety users. Rivada Networks CEO Declan Ganley has said that his company would like to align public-safety communications in the U.S. and Mexico, if the company was successful winning the bid in Mexico.
From a financial perspective, the Mexican government is not providing the winning bidder with any funding, Carney said. The contractor will have to pay a “small spectrum-license fee” and provide the government with 1% of the revenue generated from the project, he said.
Mexico’s government is scheduled to announce the winner of the Red Compartida procurement next week, on Nov. 17. Currently, the only qualified bidder is the Altan consortium, which includes Mexico-based companies Megacable and Axtel—a situation that Rivada Networks hopes will change after the company’s legal challenge, Carney said.
“All we really want is a chance to compete for this contract,” he said. “What we would like is to be swiftly reinstated; ideally, even on the 17th, to have our bid evaluated alongside our competitor—that’s all.
“Part of what we filed for is an injunction to stop them from awarding the contract. We would love to get it resolved as soon as possible … That would obviously be our preference. The last thing we want is to drag this thing out for a long time in courts.”
Adding further intrigue into Rivada Networks’ efforts in Mexico is an allegation that its custom-made wooden bid boxes were stolen while being transported from an employee’s house—where they were being stored—to Rivada Network’s offices in Mexico City just a couple of days before the bid deadline.
“Another of our Mexican employees called her and said, ‘Bring the bid boxes to the office,’” Carney said. “We had set up to print the whole proposal in house, because we didn’t want to send it out to a commercial printer and expose it to security risks, leaks and so on.
“She loaded the boxes into a hired car and headed off to the office. They were pulled over by two men on a motorcycle, who insisted that they open the trunk. They grabbed the boxes from the trunk.”
No weapons were “openly brandished” during the incident, Carney said he was told by company employees. No injuries were suffered during episode, although the Rivada Networks employee in the car was “shaken” emotionally.
“We don’t really know exactly what happened, how it happened or anything else,” Carney said. “But we do that, immediately before she left her house to bring the boxes, she was called by one of our employees, who said, ‘Bring the bid boxes.’
“We suspect that that call could have been intercepted, that the people who attacked and robbed her knew that she was transporting something germane to the bid, may have believed that she was already in possession of our proposal itself, and they were hoping to make off with our proposal and not just with the boxes. But the fact is that we don’t know for sure what the motives or the expectations were.”
