Colorado selects Rivada-Macquarie team as RAN vendor in potential FirstNet ‘opt-out’ scenario

Rivada Networks Chairman and CEO Declan Ganley echoed this sentiment.

“We are excited about the opportunity to leverage Macquarie Capital’s extensive global expertise as the premier developer of infrastructure assets, for the benefit of opt-out states,” Ganley said in a prepared statement.

Carney noted that the Rivada-Macquarie team could be a choice for states that already have initiated alternative-RAN procurements, as well as those that may issue RFPs in the future.

“We are in discussions about working together, both on any existing bids that either of us have made and on any future bids, to the extent allowable by the states in question,” Carney said during the interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications.

Carney said that Rivada officials “remain optimistic that more states will issue RFPs in the time available to them” before the Dec. 28 deadline, reiterating Ganley’s assertion that some “opt-in” states will issue RFPs to determine potential options.

Although completing a procurement and evaluation process by the Dec. 28 is logistically challenging at this point, Carney noted that governors could make an “opt-out” decision by the Dec. 28 deadline and complete the RFP process during the first half of next year. Submissions of an alternative RAN plan to the FCC would not be due until the second half of next year. If state officials do not like the alternative RAN proposals, they can decline to submit a plan to the FCC and let the FirstNet state plan be deployed by AT&T, as it would with an “opt-in” decision.