Congress grants five-year extension for LA-RICS, other BTOP grant recipients
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Congress grants five-year extension for LA-RICS, other BTOP grant recipients
Four public-safety BTOP projects—LA-RICS, New Mexico, the state of New Jersey, and Adams County, Colo.—were restarted after those entities reached spectrum-lease agreements with FirstNet to utilize its 700 MHz broadband spectrum. However, FirstNet dropped spectrum-lease negotiations with Mississippi, the city of Charlotte, N.C., and Motorola Solutions—the only non-governmental entity to be awarded a BTOP grant for a public-safety LTE network, to be built in the San Francisco Bay area—and those LTE projects were stopped.
When asked about the local-match issue for LA-RICS and whether the extension would apply to BTOP grants with halted projects, an NTIA spokeswoman provided IWCE’s Urgent Communications with the following statement: “We are evaluating the impact of the CR [Continuing Resolution] language on our broadband grantees.”
FirstNet declined to comment on the matter, referring all questions to NTIA.
Mississippi is the only state that did not apply for state-planning grants for FirstNet, and it is the only state or territory that has not scheduled an initial consultation meeting with FirstNet.
If the five-year extension applies to BTOP grant money on halted public-safety LTE projects, it could be a boon to Motorola Solutions. In addition to being the chosen vendor for $50-plus million remaining in the LA-RICS project and any money remaining in the $70 million Mississippi project, Motorola Solutions received a direct award of $50.6 million to build a public-safety LTE network in the San Francisco Bay area.
Motorola Solutions also has worked closely with the city of Charlotte, but industry sources have questioned whether any additional money is available from that BTOP grant.
Sure would have been nice for
Sure would have been nice for LA-RICS to have this before they had to jump through hoops to try and meet their current timeline.