Why public safety should be excited by FirstNet’s prospects, despite potential delays
First, there is Rivada Mercury’s current protest, which is not expected to be resolved until late February or March, at the earliest. If Rivada Mercury wins the lawsuit, its bid would need to be considered within the “competitive range” (a process we will examine more closely in a future column) and the evaluation team would need to make a decision—one that could be protested again by the bidding team that is not chosen. If Rivada Mercury loses the case, the potential for an appeal still exists.
Second, any award remains subject to approval by the FirstNet board. In theory, the FirstNet board could opt against awarding the contract, possibly restarting the bid process. This is fairly commonplace in the government-procurement arena, particularly when a bidding entity hits hard budget times. But industry sources believe that such a decision is highly unlikely in the case of FirstNet; in fact, if a contract is not awarded at the end of this RFP process, many believe political pressures could jeopardize the future of FirstNet.
Of course, what public-safety officials really want to know is when FirstNet will be built and whether they will like the services offered.
Court documents indicate that the earliest date for a FirstNet award would be March 1 (assuming contract terms are finalized). According to the FirstNet RFP, that would mean that the FirstNet and the contractor—likely AT&T—would not be required to deliver state plans until next fall, with governors needing to make opt-out decisions late in 2017.
A successful Rivada Mercury protest would create additional delays, and legal appeals certainly are possible. Another big timeline “wild card” could be AT&T’s proposed merger with Time Warner. Speculation regarding the likelihood of the massive deal being approved by regulators seems to change daily, but few believe that a decision will be made quickly.
Would AT&T’s role in FirstNet become get entangled in regulators’ review of AT&T-Time Warner, thereby creating some sort of delay for FirstNet? Hopefully not, but the unprecedented nature of this potential scenario make predictions particularly difficult. One piece of good news is that the protests delays should mean that it is much more likely that an AT&T-Time Warner regulatory decision is completed before construction of FirstNet’s 700 MHz Band 14 would begin.
As far as the FirstNet public-safety offerings, we have no idea what terms and features are in the bids submitted by AT&T and Rivada Mercury, as that information is justifiably secret (the public version of Rivada Mercury’s lawsuit is heavily redacted to protect sensitive information).