Month: March 2013

FirstNet should allow each State to individually monetize the spectrum allocated for Public Safety – its the only way to fully fund the national solution of Public Safety Broadband!

/ drmikemyers / Leave a comment

We can’t afford not to monetize the Public Safety spectrum for Public Safety. The state of the economy dictates that each State, and the Nation, needs to be creative in finding ways to cut cost and construct more sustainable revenue. What better way than to benefit from the valuable broadband spectrum allocated to FirstNet?
Through the use of a State advertised RFP (Request For Proposal) process we can allow private equity to invest into our nations public safety infrastructure insuring ourselves a path to success (reference my NOI response to FirstNet). Any other way will detract from the overall purpose of progress.  There are those that think by monetizing the spectrum allocated to each State that we are somehow detracting from the overall goal of Public Safety. I believe the exact opposite to be true.
By focusing on the three main priority levels, as indicated by FirstNet in its initial conceptual network design, we can easily configure a user base of a State PSBN solution that will produce significant amounts of recurring revenue and cost savings that can allow for a stable and self-sufficient broadband entity operated within the State, which ultimately would be re-invested using the State’s ownership portion of that revenue. 
1.     Priority 1 users are First Responders (Police, Fire and EMS types);
2.     Priority 2 users are Utilities, Transportation, Agriculture and the likes;
3.     Priority 3 users are the rural constituents of the State who require broadband service.
As I have indicated in the past (see past RFP process diagram) the importance remains in the State’s ability to illustrate a good technical specification requirement, forecasted governance model requirements (interfacing requirements) and projected financial recurring revenue picture within their RFP. Each State can MORE effectively acquire (more than the Federal Government) the specifications and the projected revenue from each of its internal State agencies and entities then combine then into the said RFP. If needed the State can also project the recurring revenue from rural broadband service as well.
In the end we have already proofed such a business case analysis, and its projected revenue stream, with one State (reference Tri-County Electric Oklahoma). We successfully illustrated a strong recurring revenue stream and strict compliance with design specifications as indicated by FirstNet. It is a holistic network design that full interoperates yet remains protected through its private implementation. The solution is entirely doable. We can’t afford not to try this approach. It’s in the best interest of the nation and our nations security.
Just some guy and a blog….

FirstNet and Multi-State Regional Partnerships will be a disaster?

/ drmikemyers / Leave a comment

There has been a lot of talk of possible multi-state regional relationships that FirstNet and the States can use to fund and build the Public Safety Broadband Network. After looking at these specific issues for the last 10-years, and understanding the issues facing the Public Safety community, and the necessity to build a large complex broadband solution, the evidence always points one model of execution – the Public Private Partnership model I am promoting. In short, I wouldn’t waste your time or your money on the multi-state solution — or the Feds money. 
The combined regional efforts of multi-state partnerships may seem to be a good idea (such as theState coalition surround Nevada and its 11 adjoining States), but it lacks the ability to balance the needs of all the States that take part. Plus, having a major vendor lead such an effort will ultimately be perceived as anti-competitive and only introduce further delays when the practices are challenged in court. Believe me they will be challenged. There is too much at stake for it not to be challenged.  
The imbalance of the State partnership scenario ultimately is faced with the execution of the ownership model as well as the execution of the physical activity. Somebody in that scenario needs to take the lead. Which State within that scenario will do that? The most valuable part of this relationship is who owns and controls the spectrum and how it will be used across Border States. We aren’t just talking about a small chunk of spectrum to deliver an LMR type solution. We are talking about spectrum that has the ability to make a lot of money using the broadband technology of today’s 4G markets. Who within the State regional model will be in control of that? Which State is willing to give control of its valuable monetization of the spectrum to an adjoining State? Plus, which State wants an adjoining State interfacing with its own internal State agencies and entities to physically build and deliver the solution? How will the controlling State work with all the internal State agencies and entities of their partner States to collect badly needed revenue? What happens down the road when the States want to take on their own network responsibilities? I can go all day at poking holes in this one.
Furthermore, for a vendor to lead such efforts introduces even more costly mistakes. How will the State, or States, issue an RFP to the market without it being challenged in court for anti-competitive practices? How will a State Legislature view this action and what will the State taxpayers say? When an OEM or vendor takes the lead it ultimately means that the control of the program relies on the technical input of the design and the requirements of the entities that will ride the network. How will an OEM be allowed to design a multi-vendor solution when they themselves are in the business of selling their own gear? What happens if some of the internal State agencies and entities don’t want to work with such an OEM? What happens if the OEM has faced legal hurdles in the past from different State agencies and entities that reside within the State? How will the taxpayers respond to such behavior – an election nightmare?
Ultimately the only way this national public safety broadband network can be built is through the use of a properly formatted Public Private Partnership where as private equity is introduced. You can take my word on this (being that I have put more than 10-years in researching the topic), or you can listen to a few who have just been introduced to the topic and have alternative motives… its up to you to consider.
By introducing private equity we allow for each State to fund and build its own portion of the national network. This allows the State to control its partnership arrangement as well as its share of the ownership, which directly reflects the amount of revenue the State can collect to reinvest back into the network. Plus, the State is in the best position to negotiate with existing internal, and external, agencies and entities that will pay to utilize the network. These negotiations will lead to users of the network, which in turn will produce the recurring revenue to attract private equity to bid.
By introducing private equity as the lead we also eliminate any “anti-competitive” scenarios where as a State can put out an RFP to the private equity market of which they will receive multiple private equity teams responding. It is up to the private equity team to pick who its DBOM (Design, Build, Operate and Maintain) team members will be and what technically approved OEM solution they will use (they are limited to just a few LTE vendors and the backhaul is standard assets of the States).[1] In this scenario even multiple private equity responses can present the same OEM solutions.
The end game here is private equities bid to pay for the State’s build-out and its long-term management (thus avoiding the taxpayer issue because we won’t need any taxpayer money to make it happen). In short, private equity will pull together its own project team to which they can obtain a DBOM proposal based off the RFP requirements from the State. The private equity team will then propose to buy the rights to build and maintain the network for the State of which will be reflected in their offer to the State. In return the private equity team will get 49% of the recurring revenue from the entities that will pay to ride the network for the long-term.
There are hosts of State Legislature’s that are already pursing the Public Private Partnership format and have even introduced them as law (see paragraph below). We just need to align the team players to achieve what we need.

“Business Digest: Public-private partnership bill advances in (Texas) Legislature

Legislation regulating public-private partnerships on Wednesday cleared the SenateCommittee on Economic Development.
Senate Bill 507 by Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, is a broad reform bill that includes protections for neighborhoods where state lands may be developed with the help of the private sector. Senate Bill 894 by Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, would bar public-private partnerships in the Capitol complex without legislative approval. The committee voted 5-0, without debate, to move the legislation to the whole Senate for a vote. No one testified against the bills.
Just some guy and a blog…

[1]For those OEM’s that are taking the initiative to help the States with their so-called “Public Private Partnerships”, I would suggest this is where they need to concentrate. It would be wise for them to team with, or help establish, their own private equity team. This will position them much better than trying to do it themselves and will eliminate the stigma of anti-competitive results.

The Marine Son

/ drmikemyers / Leave a comment

A nurse took the tired, anxious serviceman to the bedside. “Your son is here,” she said to the old man. She had to repeat the words several times before the patient’s eyes opened.

Heavily sedated because of the pain of his heart attack, he dimly saw the young uniformed Marine standing outside the oxygen tent. He reached out his hand. The Marine wrapped his toughened fingers around the old man’s limp ones, squeezing a message of love and encouragement.

The nurse brought a chair so that the Marine could sit beside the bed. All through the night the young Marine sat there in the poorly lighted ward, holding the old man’s hand and offering him words of love and strength. Occasionally, the nurse suggested that the Marine move away and rest awhile. He refused.

Whenever the nurse came into the ward, the Marine was oblivious of her and of the night noises of the hospital – the clanking of the oxygen tank, the laughter of the night staff members exchanging greetings, the cries and moans of the other patients. Now and then she heard him say a few gentle words. The dying man said nothing, only held tightly to his son all through the night.

Along towards dawn, the old man died. The Marine released the now lifeless hand he had been holding and went to tell the nurse. While she did what she had to do, he waited.

Finally, she returned. She started to offer words of sympathy, but the Marine interrupted her, “Who was that man?” he asked.

The nurse was startled, “He was your father,” she answered.

“No, he wasn’t,” the Marine replied. “I never saw him before in my life.”

“Then why didn’t you say something when I took you to him?”

“I knew right away there had been a mistake, but I also knew he needed his son, and his son just wasn’t here. When I realized that he was too sick to tell whether or not I was his son, knowing how much he needed me, I stayed. I came here tonight to find a Mr. William Grey. His Son was killed in Iraq today, and I was sent to inform him. What was this Gentleman’s Name? “

The nurse with tears in her eyes answered, “Mr. William Grey………”

The next time someone needs you … just be there. Stay.

Story from our friends at Operation Ooh-Rah

FirstNet is Chaos! Now what? "Let’s use this chaos as an opportunity to gain ground." (Obama, 2007)

/ drmikemyers / Leave a comment

FirstNet’s progress to date is not short of chaos. This may give credence to the lack of an organization behind the established FirstNet Board – as was alluded to by Chairman Sam Ginn some months ago.
As I pointed out in earlier writings, the lack of understanding the path toward full deployment and timelines for the Public Safety Network is being convoluted with unnecessary noise. Building a wireless LTE network with backhaul is not new. What needs to be understood, which I believe will clear a lot of the fog, is that the Board needs to adopt a business model that uses Public Private Partnerships that the State can follow. Such a model needs to benefit both FirstNet holistically and the State – it can’t be one-sided. It’s not perfect, but being that I have studied this for the last ten years indiscriminately (and probably the only person in America who made the asinine decision to voluntarily put myself through such an endeavor), I can safely state that it is the best solution. What pains me is how we force ourselves to indulge in our inability to comprehend the fact that we are promoting this cloud of confusion — pun intended. Henry the VIII of England would have been proud of us.
At the onset we heard little to anything about Public Private Partnerships. Now it is starting to be a term used in daily conversations and was highlighted in the Senate Oversight Committee hearing on March 14th. We have come far since last March. It should be understood that certain parties will try to confuse the picture so that they can get the best advantage, but unfortunately its just clouding the picture of our advancement.
“During a hearing before the communications and technology subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce committee, Ginn said he understands and appreciates the need for government to be transparent in its activity. However, certain rules and regulations associated with government entities are especially onerous and could slow the deployment of the network being built by FirstNet, which is expected to include public-private partnerships.”(Donny Jackson, Urgent Communications, posted March 19th,2013)
There are a few on the board who somewhat understand how commercial telecoms has worked in the past, but there are those that have not been part of that industry directly. But, sometimes the best way to clear the air is by being bombarded with all the noise. Now is probably the best time to step back and look at it from a higher-level by asking ourselves:
·      What are we building?  A broadband wireless network with backhaul. We chose LTE, which is the latest and greatest. Backhaul is backhaul and hasn’t changed since the first cell phone networks went up.
·      Who are we building it for? Public Safety Service Organizations (notice I did not just say First Responders).
·      Why are we building it? To provide a hardened protected private network that can stay up during disasters and that can be prioritized to meet First Responder needs.
·      Where are we building it? Ultimately 100% of the geographic landmass. It will deploy in phases so just stick with the first phases then move to the next.  
·      How are we going to deploy it? Like we usually do by issuing RFPs at the State level.
·      Where will we get the specifications on how to build it? Technical specifics will come from FirstNet. Tactically from the internal and external State agencies and entities that require private broadband service within a given State. Financially from the partnership of FirstNet, the State and the Private Equity respondents.
·      How are we going to pay for it? Through State generated RFPs for Public Private Partnerships that utilize the spectrum as a commercial carrier would by monetizing the access to the spectrum through leases and subscriptions then selling it to private equity as a package so that they will pony up and pay for its installation and long-term management (via the State generated RFP). Of course access to the spectrum and sharing in the recurring revenue with the Private Equity awardee….49% of millions of dollars is not a bad return. 
·      How will it work nationally? By establishing interoperable connections between the State networks back into a national call center for control – Core-to-Core establishment. If necessary establish commercial carrier roaming agreements to access non-private network traffic. I would not recommend connecting to the commercial carriers until we get a handle on cyber security therefore it will be important to keep the network private for awhile. A good case study should be the DoD NIPRNet and SIPRNet networks. 
Being more directly involved with the strategy and planning for many broadband networks I can definitely attest to the fact that this really isn’t rocket science.
Just some guy and a blog….

Addressing Concerns and the Next Steps for FirstNet

/ drmikemyers / Leave a comment

Last week I was able to make a preliminary presentation of my Public Private Partnership model to a few of the FirstNet Board members. I wanted to address some of their concerns that were brought up, which I believe are not concerns we should be concerned about — which just the thought of bringing it up is disconcerting. 😉
The first topic of “concern” was that “the network has to be one overall network”. This one statement is confusing a lot of people. The statement should be reworded to say, “the network has to be one overall private network”. People are being confused into believing that technically, and tactically, there will be 56 separate networks designed and built per the State’s needs — that’s actually not true. We’ve been building the same type of backhaul infrastructure for more than 20 40 years now and it’s been deployed in almost all of the major vertical industries the same way. Plus, we only have a few vendor solutions for LTE, so it will be theoretically impossible to have a bunch of drastically different networks. The only real threat we have to the overall national private LTE network is the introduction of multiple technology layers; as was laid out in the first conceptual presentation by Craig Farrell.
If we start introducing satellite, and the inequity of carrier based network designs, then the threat of 56 different networks is real.  My suggestion would be to focus on the LTE and its backhaul considerations only. The real issue will come from the rural coverage areas, but with my proposed P3 model we can provide coverage by including Utilities, Transportation, Agriculture, Forestry and others.  If we still have voids within the network design then we should start considering — and only then — satellite-based backhaul technologies (I can safely guess that the carrier solution will be out of the question). I can think of one State that will have a hard time getting the coverage needed if it wants to meet the 99% coverage requirement – that being Alaska. Alaska’s solution will come from a modified P3 arrangement between the Feds, the State and the private equity team, which I can address later. But for now I want to reiterate the point that by NOT focusing purely on the LTE and backhaul design solutions we will come face-to-face with Craig Farrell’s original design concept…. again.

FirstNet has said the public safety broadband network will “cover every square meter of the United States,” noted Chris McIntosh, statewide interoperability coordinator for the commonwealth of Virginia. “They must do that with a network that greatly exceeds the design specifications and redundancies of commercial networks, but with a fraction of the resources the private sector has currently expended on a network that only covers two-thirds of the country,” he said. (David Perera, Fierce Government IT, 2013)

“What are the next steps?” The importance will remain with FirstNet in that it must set the ground rules and establish (which it already has) the technical requirements that the network has to be built upon. That would include the approved vendor solutions, of which there are only a limited few.

The only vendor solutions available for an LTE deployment are Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks and IP Wireless (General Dynamics). But NSN is an FDD design, which means more physical-footprint of the design and increased cost. The IP Wireless solution, by General Dynamics, has not been deployed in a carrier environment (At least not that I’m aware of). This leaves only ALU and Ericsson. Huawei is out due to its Chinese ownership.

Following the technical requirements all that needs to be done is for FirstNet to explain how it believes the business relationship between the State and FirstNet needs to be conducted. To do this FirstNet needs to adopt the overall Public Private Partnership model and how it can be executed at the State level in coordination with its desires. FirstNet can then indicate (on an individual State basis) its ownership responsibilities as laid out in the Feds stake of the Public Private Partnership that is associated with the States portion of the P3 investment (in my model 49% would go to the private equity investors and the remaining 51% would remain with the State/FirstNet). Unless the Feds just want to see a leasing payment for the use of the spectrum allocated to the State, which could actually be more beneficial for FirstNet in its ease of adaptation. I think the bigger question here is whether or not FirstNet can collect revenue for itself, or does it have to reinvest in the network as well?
The final concern surrounds the perception that “if the State’s were to build their own part of the overall private network then we would have 56 simultaneously deployed networks”. This is not true either. At first it should be just a chosen few States to start with — maybe one or two. Once the P3 model has been instituted, and proven successful, then we can start to establish a timeline of phased approaches; which can be accomplished in regional simultaneously builds. Such programmatic models and scheduling aspects are nothing new to the industry and are quite common with the commercial carriers who they themselves run simultaneous turf markets of LTE deployments. The tactical and technical complexities are not actually the issue (including “CORE” relationships) . The issue will be the financial governance control. Once we have successfully proven the P3 financial implementation of the programs, then we can easily adopt the same concept to the other States; thus the reason for starting with just one or two States.

“Who builds the network and who operates the network, that, I think, is open and negotiable,” Ginn told the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on communications and technology March 14th, 2013.FirstNet oversees creation of a nationwide broadband network for use by first responders; it currently is in the process of developing a network architecture. “The network will not be a network of networks”. Ginn said, stating that “multiple architectures would challenge interoperability, as well as unitary standards for network security, reliability and maintenance”.  (David Perera, Fierce Government IT, 2013) Observation: This runs counter to the conceptual design laid out by Craig Farrell.

It’s important to remember that the tactical design, construction and deployment of the network has to be done by the State. The State is better positioned to interface directly with all the local resources that will deliver the physical network construction and installation (else the cost of construction will be to high). There is no way around that. Even if FirstNet were to bring in an overall program manager — the entire national build-out would still need to execute locally.

What I carried away from this conversation last week is that the passion to build the network is strong; as is the lack of experience in deploying broadband solutions. Take it from a 25 year veteran of the telecommunications industry…. the technical deployment of this network is nothing new; we have been deploying these types of broadband networks for many years — to include LTE for the last 5.  In short, we are facing an Abilene paradox! Everyone is heading for the same place only doing it on separate paths.

Just some guy and a blog….

Senate Oversight Sub-Committee Meeting for FirstNet – Introduction of the Public Private Partnership to fund the entire solution

/ drmikemyers / Leave a comment

Having just wrapped up my listening to the Senate Sub-Committee meeting for the FirstNet Oversight I would have to say that I’m a bit disappointed and I’m losing confidence in the leadership. I would like to commend Mr. Ganley, CEO of Rivada Networks, for taking the initiative to talk about the Pubic Private Partnership (P3) model that I have been pushing for quite sometime. Being that I have spent the last 10+ years developing the model it was refreshing to hear someone else talk about it with passion and enthusiasm. Mr. Ganley will have a problem though.
The concept of a P3 being funded and administered through the sale of commercial services via the underutilized bandwidth and coverage areas will not be sustainable.  I suggest that if you are to use my model then we need to open up the focal point on this target. We’re not going to kill the charging elephant with a 22-caliber-pea shooter.
Although Mr. Ganley is heading in the right direction; by fostering all three of the Priority levels within the Public Safety Broadband Network you will notice that there are many more potential clients than just the subscribers of commercial service. In the State of Oklahoma there only exist 487,000+ rural customers and the only real way to access them is through the electric cooperatives. Being that FirstNet cannot be used as a commercial service means that access to the potential clients, which is not a lot, would have to be delivered through a slightly altered model than what Mr. Ganley is suggesting.
If you want to know more …. I’m available.
Just some guy and a blog….

State BTOPs and the Lack of Funding for the National Public Safety Broadband Network or FirstNet

/ drmikemyers / Leave a comment

Donny Jackson, of Urgent Communications, just wrote an interesting article titled: “Early Deployments can be Key to FirstNet Success.” Mr. Jackson highlights how the current push to get the BTOP funding back online is having a positive impact on one thing – it brings to light the question of where will the funding come from?
I want to address two important topics from this discussion; one is about the reasoning for the State’s to test their own LTE solution; and the other is the lack of funding still hasn’t been addressed.
If the current Pilot LTE projects (that were being paid by the BTOP grants) are important to the State then FirstNet should just release the spectrum to be used by the State under a short time-period (which they are doing). Why does the NTIA give a short-time period? Because they will need that spectrum when the real network gets deployed. But why does the NTIA, or FirstNet, need to add funding to support those tests? Haven’t they already committed 100 Million to the Denver labs to do the same thing?
I’m being facetious here; if it were I, and I have to do some testing, then just give me the spectrum and I will do the testing the way I want to. I know the use of the spectrum comes with limitations, but I don’t plan on using this spectrum for anything other than testing…. right? Therefore, and I know, that the testing of a State’s physical LTE is not part of the plan for FirstNet, so why shouldn’t I (as a State) pay for it? If, later on, I want to use the testing infrastructure as part of the overall State rollout then I need to make sure it gets hardened enough so that it meets the standards. Maybe then I can recoup some of the pilot money we spent! We won’t be able to pass along the actual LTE technology because the version that will be deployed in the trial is not what is being rolled out in the future. Or, I can just wait so that I don’t interfer with the State’s, and FirstNet’s, possible Public Private Partnership scenarios.  Maybe it would be easier to sell the testing infrastructure and assets to private equity who would possibly pay for the entire statewide PSBN solution? 
Let’s face it, the BTOP spending of yesteryear was mainly for fiber transport, and LMR centralization projects, and was ultimately helping the State to expand their plans of that time; we need to understand that  times are different and the plans have changed. Broadband LTE has taken over the course that Public Safety should invest in. The only way to deliver such a solution, with the least amount of troubles, yet maintain a “self-funding” characteristic, is through a State generated Public Private Partnership (P3) with private investors.
It may be just me, but if a State wants to test LTE, two years before FirstNet actually starts to rollout, then so be it. It’s their money and their taxpayers. What’s wrong with this picture? Is it just me or does this seem asinine? 
On a more serious note; the lack of funding needs to be addressed on multiple fronts. For the real purposes of FirstNet I agree that the SLIGP grant funding (not BTOP) needs to insure a few precursor objectives.
  1. We need to insure we have enough money to capture the RFP activities that the State’s require for the purposes of FirstNet (assets, specifications and hardening requirements).
  2. The State needs to be able to pay for outreach and educating its State agencies and entities. Specifically those that will be paying for service from the State PSBN solution.
  3. The State’s need support for negotiations with Private Equity respondents to the advertised RFP.
  4. From this point forward the rest of the funding will come from Private Equity and the recurring revenue accumulated from the Federal and State Priority 1, 2 and 3 users of the network.

Notice that there is no need to go to the State Legislature for budgeting of State tax dollars. Heck we don’t even need the 7 Billion the Feds have promised. If we are forced to spend the 7 Billion, then I suggest we buy more ownership in the investment stakes of each of the State’s P3 plans. But we know that will never happen.

In short, we will build a private broadband company for the State, funded with private investment, to monetize the use of the spectrum and maintain its self-funding trait. The only way this scenario is possible is through a State controlled Public Private Partnership (P3). After 11 years of research on this topic I can safely contribute that without the P3 there will never be enough funding. This is specifically why the carriers want FirstNet to allow them to build it — because they want to monetize the spectrum for themselves. So why can’t a State do the same?
Just some guy and a blog….

FirstNet doing the deal with the Devil? The Devil is in the details: Carriers to build the Public Safety Broadband?

/ drmikemyers / Leave a comment

Seems as though FirstNet Board has their mind made-up on who will provide the Nations Public Safety Broadband Network — that being the carriers?
In a recent article titled: “FirstNet chairman outlines goals to governors” on Mar. 5, 2013 by Donny Jackson | Urgent Communications, Mr. Jackson quotes Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley expressed interest in another version of local control — the ability for states to negotiate deals with partners that could help generate revenue.
“I hope that you’ll also give us the capacity to let us work out leases that give us the priority — and give us the ability to pre-empt — but also allow us to raise some dollars at the local level, so we can buy and invest in the 700 MHz network,” O’Malley said.
Ginn said that the concept of negotiating deals with potential partners will be a key component of the ongoing plans for the FirstNet network, but he did not commit to a specific methodology.
“The question is: Could the individual states do better in negotiating with an AT&T, Sprint or Verizon, or could we cut a better deal nationwide?” Ginn said. “Whatever way it goes, you want to plow those savings back into the pricing structure.”
Is this a blatant answer to where Samm Ginn and the FirstNet Board are going?  From my interpretation this reads that Samm Ginn, thus the FirstNet Board, are fixated on doing a deal with the commercial carriers no matter what. It doesn’t matter for the fact that there will not be enough funding to make it happen; nor that fact that the carriers, who have no intention of hardening their own networks for the last 10 years, will put a dime into hardening the infrastructure in the future (which cost roughly three times their normal spend). Nor does it even start to address who will pay for the networks build-out to the rural areas of the Nation – the carriers? The Board doesn’t even hint at the fact that somebody has to pay for the networks long-term management and maintenance. Who will be held responsible for these activities – FirstNet? The State Governor’s better take a hard look at this one — I will bet huge amounts of money that the State’s will end up holding the bag and thus trying to work with the same commercial carriers they have been fighting with all along. Then again maybe its just me and my commonsense getting in the way again.
Or, maybe what Mr. O’Malley was referring to was the States ability to put together its own “Public Private Partnership” where as they can benefit from Private Equity paying for the entire State solution; as well as a share in the State’s recurring revenue from the State’s PSBN users. Maybe it has nothing to do with the carriers. By partnering with the commercial carriers does not “plow the savings back into the pricing structure” as Samm Ginn eludes too. What “cost savings” come from paying the commercial carriers even more money for a solution they can’t even deliver on today? In fact it actually takes taxpayer money and pays the commercial carriers even more than what they already take from the State and Federal Government.
Personally, I’ve asked formally on two separate occasions to present a sound Public Private Partnership model and have heard nothing more than crickets. The model I wish to present actually benefits FirstNet and the States precisely to what Mr. O’Malley may be alluding to in his question. Why would it be of concern to the FirstNet Board to consider a much more lucrative and cost beneficial solution to build the Nations Public Safety Broadband Network other than obstinacy?
I can safely claim that if FirstNet does a deal with the devil they had better be prepared for the wrath of political upheaval — or at least be able to account for some “shovel ready jobs”. You can rest assured that if they proceed with what I interpret to be their plan, then there will definitely be a lot shoveling of something – and I don’t think it will be dirt
… then again they only have three year terms, so why should they care.
Just some guy and a blog …..