Don’t be too quick to judge New Hampshire harshly for signing deal with Rivada

Last week, the state of New Hampshire’s governor and executive council voted unanimously to conclude its procurement process and sign a deal with Rivada Networks for the exclusive rights to build and maintain the LTE radio access network (RAN) for the state, if—and this is a very big “if”—New Hampshire opts out of FirstNet.

Many in the public-safety community have been outspoken in their criticism of New Hampshire, arguing that the state has jumped the gun on its decision to opt out of FirstNet (for those not familiar with FirstNet, “opt out” means a state or territory chooses to build the RAN instead letting FirstNet and its partner do it; no state will be allowed to not have a FirstNet system within its borders).

Only time will tell whether such criticism is warranted, but there are some aspects of the New Hampshire-Rivada Networks agreement that many people may have overlooked. Here are some statements that I’ve heard recently, with some context that should be considered:

“New Hampshire already has decided to opt out.” Many observers saw the announcement about Rivada and figured that New Hampshire effectively has decided to opt out of FirstNet, despite the fact that the contract explicitly states that New Hampshire has not made an opt-out decision, noting that it may never actually have Rivada Networks build anything.

This is supported by statements from officials from both the state and Rivada Networks that nothing will be built until New Hampshire makes a formal opt-out decision.

Others have argued that those are all just words. While New Hampshire legally has not made an opt-out decision—from a legal perspective, it’s not even an option until the state plans are presented next spring—the agreement with Rivada Networks effectively is a prejudgment that the state plans to opt out of FirstNet, many have stated.

But there’s a major flaw to this argument: The law states that each governor will decide whether his/her state or territory will pursue the opt-out alternative, and New Hampshire doesn’t know who its governor will be next spring. Current Gov. Maggie Hassan is running for the U.S. Senate, and voters are going to the polls today to vote in the primaries for the governor’s race.

Not only would it be irresponsible for a state to prejudge whether it will opt out of FirstNet even before seeing what FirstNet and its partner will offer the state, it is logistically impossible in New Hampshire, because no one knows who will be governor when the decision has to be made.

(Random thought: I wonder if the FirstNet opt-out decision is—or will be—a campaign issue in New Hampshire? Of course, that would require folks to understand what FirstNet actually is, much less what will be involved in making an opt-out decision.)