Will other states follow New Hampshire’s lead and conduct their own RFPs for public-safety LTE?

Given all of these circumstances, it would not be surprising if other states decide to conduct their own RFPs as part of the effort to prepare governors for the one-shot opt-out decision after the state plans are presented. After all, if New Hampshire—a middle-of-the-road state in terms of population density—can get five bids, many other states probably feel confident that vendors will give them proposals.

Even if the state RFP fails and no bids are received, some states still would consider the process to be valuable. While such a result may be distasteful, wouldn’t it better to learn that no one will bid before the opt-out decision is made, instead of discovering this is the case after the governor makes an opt-out decision and delays any potential FirstNet deployment by several months?

Based on the current FirstNet legal interpretation that opt-out states will not be allowed to keep any revenue generated that exceeds the cost to build and maintain the radio access network (RAN), it’s still difficult to imagine that states will choose the opt-out alternative, if the FirstNet state plan is close to what state officials want—the potential financial liability and political risk associated with opt-out alternative is just too great.

However, going through the RFP process may make sense for some states. Some may want the bids for comparison purposes, others may want them for perceived leverage during state consultations, and others may legitimately want a way to opt out of FirstNet.

New Hampshire officials are adamant that they have not made an opt-out choice already. Hopefully, that is the case, because doing so before evaluating the FirstNet state plan would be premature—for New Hampshire or any other state. But preparing for the day that opt-out decision has to be made is only responsible, and conducting an RFP this year to give a governor a choice is certainly one way for a state to meet its “due diligence” obligations. It will be interesting to see if states other than New Hampshire feel the same way.