NTIA proposes rules to review, approve FirstNet fees each year

FirstNet’s board last week voted to approve the release of the organization’s final request for proposal (RFP) early next month. Although the details of the RFP are not known, there was no indication during FirstNet board or committee meetings that the business approach would differ from FirstNet’s draft RFP that was released in April.

In the draft RFP, FirstNet would not assess network user fees directly. Instead, FirstNet would provide its selected partner as much as $6.5 billion to help finance the deployment of the nationwide broadband network, and the partner would make a quarterly payment to FirstNet that would fund FirstNet’s operations. The partner would assess and collect all network user fees from both public-safety entities and secondary commercial customers.

If this structure is maintained in the final RFP, NTIA arguably would not have authority to review network user fees under the NPRM, because the fees would be collected by the partner, not FirstNet. When asked about the situation, NTIA provided the following response.

“This NPRM is intended to provide a 10,000-foot view of NTIA’s fee review role and is just the first step,” according to a prepared statement from an NTIA spokeswoman. “We anticipate that once FirstNet completes its RFP, we will issue a further notice to flesh out the review process in more detail.”

Public comments about the NPRM are due on Jan. 14, according to an NTIA press release. Comments can be submitted electronically through www.regulations.gov or by mail to: Office of Public Safety Communications; National Telecommunications and Information Administration; U.S. Department of Commerce; 1401 Constitution Avenue, NW; Washington, DC  20230.

FirstNet urged interested parties to submit comments to the proceeding.

“We believe this is an important next step in the process of establishing the nationwide public-safety broadband network,” FirstNet spokesman Ryan Oremland said in a prepared statement. “Consistent with FirstNet’s efforts to be open and transparent in all of our implementation efforts, we’d encourage all of our stakeholders to also participate in NTIA’s process by filing comments.”