IWCE panel: Preparation key to states making good opt-in/opt-out decision on FirstNet

Ohio officials are exploring a number of options regarding FirstNet, including partnerships with companies like Google and working with other states in Ohio’s FEMA region, according to Anderson.

“We’re not discounting anything at this time,” Anderson said. “We’ve actually discussed [the notion] that our first contact with FirstNet ought to be with all six states of FEMA region 5, because—collectively—we have a tremendous amount of population and, quite honestly, infrastructure. Maybe we’ll even put out an RFI or two from all of FEMA region 5 and see if we can get some economies of scale there.”

In terms of the opt-in/opt-out question, it is “much, much, much too early” for states to make a decision today, Anderson said. However, it is important that states do the work necessary to ensure that their first responders have access to broadband capabilities, he said.

“We want FirstNet to succeed, because we know that the next generation of cops and firefighters aren’t going to be impressed about being a cop or a firefighter, if we give them a radio and say, ‘This is the technology we’re going to use,’” Anderson said. “If nothing else, from a recruitment and attention standpoint, if we want the best and the brightest to be cops, firefighters and EMS people, we have to provide them with the technology that they’re growing up with.

“So, FirstNet can’t fail. We’re all in this together, and we need it to work for us.”

During recent months, several industry observers have indicated that FirstNet should have shown more tangible signs of progress during its first two years of existence. Anderson said he does not share that opinion, comparing the FirstNet mission to another famous engineering initiative the United States undertook 50 years ago.

“I don’t think that they should be farther along,” Anderson said. “I think we all would like them to be farther along, but I don’t think this is much different than when John F. Kennedy said we were going to the moon by the end of the decade [of the 1960s]. We all decided we were going to the moon, but we didn’t know how we were going to get there. I think, if you look back at NASA in 1963 or 1964, they probably had a lot more questions than answers, too.

“So, we’ve all got to keep working together, and we in Ohio are going to make dadgum sure than FirstNet knows that and that we want it to work correctly for us and everyone else.”