Seybold: Many FirstNet contractors being selected by DOC/NTIA, not FirstNet management

Last August—just three months after joining FirstNet—General Manager Bill D’Agostino acknowledged that some uncertainty surrounding FirstNet’s “independent entity” designation existed at the time.

“I think there’s still things to understand and define a little bit better, but I’m comfortable where we are right now, given the limited amount of time we’ve had to begin to study these things,” D’Agostino said during an August 2013 interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “As we continue to study them, I think and hope that we will find some opportunities that will allow us to do things in a little more flexible fashion.”

Hiring procedures topped the list of reasons why clarity in this area is important, D’Agostino said during the August 2013 interview.

“First and foremost, I’d try to find a way to accelerate the hiring and onboarding process—not necessarily to cut out any of the steps, but just find a way to accelerate the ability to attract the pool of people and then the ability to move that pool of people through in a much more expeditious fashion than we do today,” D’Agostino said in August 2013.

“It seems like you’re looking at 4-6 months before you have somebody on board. I’d rather see that be more like 4-6 weeks.”