Rivada’s Ganley calls on FirstNet to share revenues with states, provide free service to public safety

Ganley also said delivering free service to public safety is a central tenet of Rivada’s philosophy. When asked whether providing free service could lead to harmful congestion on the network, Ganley acknowledged that “there have to be some constraints,” outlining an offering to public-safety entities that provides free service for a certain amount of data throughout the entity but assesses charges for overage data consumed.

“A generous offering of free data to public safety … I know it’s what they wanted,” Ganley said. “When [public-safety officials] fought for this thing—and you fought hard for it—it was one of the reasons that you did it, so that public safety got free service, so that public safety got the capacity and the coverage, and it was so that you got to maximize the value for that valuable asset.

“We want to make sure that we maximize the value, give that value back to public safety—in terms of free service, in terms of coverage, in terms of ruthless preemption, in terms of a user experience on that next that, for them, it feels like nobody else is there, and that allows it to maximize revenue, so that money can be plowed back into the public-safety communications mission.”

Ganley expressed confidence that there would be enough revenue generated through the FirstNet initiative to pay for free service for public safety, rural deployments and allow states to keep a share of surplus revenue—at least under the Rivada Mercury proposal, which features Rivada Networks’ dynamic-spectrum-access wholesale broadband marketplace.

“I haven’t seen the other guys’ bids, but I can tell you that there is definitely enough money,” Ganley said. “Not only is there enough money but—and I’m probably going very close to boundaries here—I can tell you that, … by applying the open-access-market to this low-band spectrum—it’s very valuable spectrum—if you apply the open-access-market model, which means that you’re not limiting to one carrier being able to use it …that competition for that resource is highly revenue-generative.”