Rivada, Verizon question AT&T/FirstNet actions as ‘opt-in/opt-out’ deadline just a week away

In addition, Rivada Networks asked David Redl—the administrator for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which oversees FirstNet—to restart governors’ 90-day period for making their “opt-in/opt-out” decisions, based on the notion that the new SMLA changes represent a significant change to state-plan considerations.

“We actually have sent in a letter to Redl arguing for restarting the shot clock today,” Rivada Network spokesman Brian Carney said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “We think that this clearly violates the spirit—and maybe the letter—of the law, because they’re supposed to have 90 days to consider this stuff. To drop this on states selectively the week before the decision is due is frankly outrageous.

“FirstNet is not going to restart the shot clock, so somebody else would have to step in.”

Rivada also has taken the matter to members of Congress, but Carney acknowledged that it would be difficult to make significant progress on Capitol Hill by the Dec. 28 deadline.

“We really are trying every avenue we can, but there are other things going on in Washington right now,” Carney said.

In a letter e-mailed to state single points of contact (SPOCs) this week, FirstNet noted that “the SMLA is not part of the state plan.” If this assertion is accepted by NTIA, sources agree that there would be no need to restart the 90-day clock for governor’s decisions, because the revised SMLA would not represent a change to the state plan.

Don Brittingham, Verizon’s vice president for public-safety policy, said he believes the draft SMLA revisions were needed, but the timing of their release undermines the benefit to states.

“It's good that FirstNet now recognizes that its onerous opt-out conditions were unreasonable, but changing those conditions just one week prior to the opt-out deadline leaves states with no reasonable opportunity to factor those changes into their decisions,” Brittingham said in a prepared statement. “We believe that Congress intended for states to have a meaningful opportunity to opt-out, but unfortunately the process has not played out that way.”

In addition, Verizon published a blog Thursday from Mike Maiorana—senior vice president of Verizon Enterprise Solutions for the public sector—in response to a recent statement from AT&T that “Verizon says they have public safety’s back, but when it comes to the heavy lifting, they are nowhere to be found.”