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Long Term Evolution (LTE)


Verizon skips California RFP bid, claims FirstNet, AT&T are ‘rigging the game’

  • Written by Donny Jackson
  • 9th December 2017
Verizon reverses its public stance and does not bid on California’s procurement seeking an alternative vendor to FirstNet in a potential “opt-out” scenario, citing “onerous” mandates from FirstNet and claiming that FirstNet and contractor AT&T are “rigging the game to stifle true competition.”

What is in this article?

  • Verizon skips California RFP bid, claims FirstNet, AT&T are ‘rigging the game’
  • Verizon skips California RFP bid, claims FirstNet, AT&T are ‘rigging the game’
  • Verizon skips California RFP bid, claims FirstNet, AT&T are ‘rigging the game’

Verizon skips California RFP bid, claims FirstNet, AT&T are ‘rigging the game’

Verizon this week reversed its public stance and did not bid on California’s procurement seeking an alternative vendor to FirstNet in a potential “opt-out” scenario, citing “onerous” mandates from FirstNet and claiming that FirstNet and contractor AT&T are “rigging the game to stifle true competition.”

Last month, California issued a request for proposals (RFP) seeking vendors willing to build and maintain the LTE radio access network (RAN), if Gov. Jerry Brown decides to pursue the FirstNet “opt-out” alternative by the Dec. 28 deadline. The deadline for California bids was Wednesday. California officials told IWCE’s Urgent Communications that state policy prohibits the release of the number of bidders or the identity of bidders during an active procurement.

One thing that is clear about the California procurement is that Verizon did not submit a proposal, despite previous public statements from David Wiederecht—director of Verizon’s public-safety solutions group—that the carrier would make a proposal, if California initiated a procurement to select an alternative RAN contractor.

In a statement provided today to IWCE’s Urgent Communications, Verizon emphasized that it “remains committed to supporting public-safety customers and agencies in California and across the country” but the carrier decided not to make an alternative RAN bid in California.

“Unfortunately, after carefully and extensively reviewing the State of California's public-safety-network RFP requirements, we have chosen not to bid on the RFP,” Verizon said in its statement. “Technical and financial requirements dictated by FirstNet's draft spectrum management lease agreement (SMLA) saddled the state of California—through no fault of its own—with onerous and vaguely defined mandates in its RFP that impacted our ability to create a response we believe best served public safety and Verizon.

“Vigorous competition that allows the industry and the marketplace to continue to grow and innovate is in the best interest of public safety and should be everyone's shared goal. Instead, we believe FirstNet and its corporate partner are rigging the game in order to stifle true competition. 

“Our decision not to submit an RFP response in no way impacts our work with public safety customers in California. We continue to support them every day, as we have for decades, including actively working with public safety officials during the ongoing southern California wildfires.”

In response to a question from IWCE’s Urgent Communications, a Verizon spokesperson confirmed that one of the problematic FirstNet mandates is the requirement that all communications from FirstNet public-safety users in an “opt-out” state must be sent to the FirstNet LTE core network operated by AT&T.

“We're not prepared to have our public safety customers run on a network where we can't control their ability to connect or their customer experience,” according to the Verizon spokesperson.

In addition, the Verizon spokesperson state that the decision not to bid in California is not reflective of the carrier’s position in other states, noting that Verizon evaluates RFP opportunities related to FirstNet on a “case-by-case basis.”

California evaluators are scheduled to complete their review of the bids on Wednesday, Dec. 13. A winning vendor could be named on Dec. 29, if the state does not accept the FirstNet state plan to be executed by AT&T under an “opt-in” scenario.

Of course, the California RFP would result in an actual contract only if Gov. Jerry Brown were to make an “opt-out” decision by Dec. 28 and the state secures approvals from the FCC and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). In addition, the state would need to negotiate a spectrum management lease agreement (SMLA) with FirstNet.

AT&T was named as FirstNet’s nationwide contractor in March, being selected after winning a lengthy federal procurement in which Verizon declined to bid.

“Building a state-of-the art network that meets the needs of first responders is hard. Clearly, AT&T is up for the task,” Chris Sambar, AT&T’s senior vice president for FirstNet, said in a statement provided to IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “We’re noticing a pattern: Verizon says they have public safety’s back, but when it comes to the heavy lifting, they are nowhere to be found.”

1 | 2 | 3 |
Verizon skips California RFP bid, claims FirstNet, AT&T are ‘rigging the game’
Tags: Long Term Evolution (LTE) News NTIA/FirstNet Policy Public Safety Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet News

13 comments

  1. Avatar Guest 9th December 2017 @ 3:31 pm
    Reply

    Of course the whole thing is
    Of course the whole thing is rigged and not competitive. It was designed that way from the start.

    The opt out process was added because the federal government knew it could never get away with making it a mandate. Offer states the figleaf of voluntary cooperation while making the alternative so onerous that almost no one would be willing to do it.

    What I can’t imagine is that anyone is at all shocked or surprised by this.

  2. Avatar AnonymousradiousersNY 9th December 2017 @ 4:07 pm
    Reply

    Gee, no kidding. Seems
    Gee, no kidding. Seems Verizon is spot on. Even they know no-net is a boondoggle.

  3. Avatar Anonymous7 11th December 2017 @ 2:36 pm
    Reply

    Verizon had the opportunity
    Verizon had the opportunity to bid on the original FirstNet RFP and declined to do so. Now that they are trying to cherry pick the lucrative states and can’t overcome the momentum they cry foul?

    Am I missing something?

    • Avatar Anonymous10 12th December 2017 @ 10:48 am
      Reply

      BINGO
      BINGO

    • Avatar Anonymous59 12th December 2017 @ 8:50 pm
      Reply

      Exactly! Verizon had the
      Exactly! Verizon had the SAME opportunity to bid on the RFP and chose not to. Someone should talk with the Executives that made that decision to understand the “why” part.

  4. Avatar Anonymous 123 12th December 2017 @ 10:21 pm
    Reply

    Verizon did not bid on
    Verizon did not bid on FirstNet. Verizon did not bid on the 600 MHz. Incentive Auction frequencies. AT&T got the FIrstNet bid, and therefore 700MHz Band 14. T-Mobile got the 600 MHz incentive auction frequencies. Verizon enabled their competitors by their inaction. What did they think was going to happen?

    • Avatar John_Brown 13th December 2017 @ 9:00 pm
      Reply

      What is the true value of 20
      What is the true value of 20 MHz of low band spectrum 700 MHz bands really? That depends on how you intend to use it. It seems to me that most are not aware of the fact that low band is not highly desirable for urban densification which is currently the focus of most mature cellular networks operators today. The customers demand for high speed data is mushrooming hence network operators are forced to add more and more wireless facilities (sites) to the existing network to meet that demand.
      The challenge of densification with Low band spectrum relates to the physics of RF propagation and antenna design. At a specified power level a Low band signal will propagate much further than High band signal such as PCS or AWS or higher frequencies. This increased propagation range while great for a Greenfield network in allowing for larger inter-site distance now creates limits on the ability to densify the network by adding more similar sites nearby. Building nearby low band sites will cause mutual interference as they operate on the same spectrum. The resulting interference and the low network speed it causes defeats the goal increased capacity by densification.
      Additionally at low band frequencies the antenna characteristics needed to properly control the footprint of each site are result in significantly bigger antennas than for PCS or AWS frequencies due to the physics. You are not going to be able to deploy 8 foot antennas on buildings everywhere in most Urban areas, which is generally where you do need the capacity. If the operator does such a deployment using much smaller Low band antennas with their inherent limited directivity the result will a highly interfered radio frequency environment, an RF soup !

  5. Avatar Anonymous11 13th December 2017 @ 12:29 am
    Reply

    VZW did not bid on the
    VZW did not bid on the original firstNet RFP. That alone shows how much they care about Public Safety. Now that they see they will have major State and local contracts go away they want to come play.

  6. Avatar AnonymousradiousersNY 13th December 2017 @ 12:55 am
    Reply

    Anonymous 7 & 10. Why would
    Anonymous 7 & 10. Why would they bid. They read the ridiculous business model and say no way. However, they have the nations largest and most reliable network, so why wouldn’t they want to offer service to public safety, just not through the rigged BS no net scam arrangement. Just my 2 cents

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