About a year ago I was at one of the many conferences that were teaming with the idea of FirstNet. The FirstNet Board had just been assigned and numerous rumors were starting to seave, but something struck me as strange. I had been writing about the need to use Public Private Partnerships, to help build the Nation’s Public Safety Broadband Network, which back then was still titled “the First Responder Network”, for at least a year when I had a conversation with someone at a conference. After evangelizing about the P3 model in my 30-second elevator speach, this individual told me that they, and a few others, were already working on a “business plan”, with certain members of the FirstNet Board, and they may want to use the P3 modeling as part of that plan. Fortunately, I never heard from the individual again.

Fast forward to about 10-12 months later when I start hearing about a “400-page business plan” for FirstNet, which struck me as odd, in that I had presented my P3 model to a few individuals at FirstNet, and the NTIA, and was always told it was too early to discuss what the business model should be. Then the accusations from a 40-year veteran of law enforcement stating improper behavior around business planning without all the boards consent, which coming from a 40-year Chief carries a lot of integrity if you ask me. But, as my feable mind started to comprehend, things started to come together.

The one thing that was evident in yesterday’s board meeting was that there was never a mention of the “400-page plan” not existing, in fact, it was stated that “the plan” did not cross any lines of legality. As Chief Fitzgerald stated, just because the review was done as a legal review, doesn’t mean there wasn’t anything going on. Regardless, sitting on a politically appointed board myself, I know of the frustration with learning how to operate in such an environment. In my mind, the intentions of a few board members got the better of themselves while trying to prove that they could build this network with relative ease, when in fact, the board is a political consensus driven tool to insuring the course is set. The board is not supposed to actually build anything, but, with any new board members, mistakes will be made, not that I made any myself, I’m just saying.

Getting back to that 400 page plan; just because we have some members of the board that got a little ahead of themselves, doesn’t negate the fact that the commercial carriers, and a few consultants, saw this as an opportunity and made a play for it. You don’t just create a 400-page business plan with just a few new board members; someone had to have put a team together. It was quite interesting to see how everyone clamored for the woods when the Chief made his claims though.

In the end, it’s a lesson that will not go unnoticed by our FirstNet Board, especially when it deals with the legality of rule making at the Federal level. If there is one thing we can count on is that there are plenty of lawyers in DC.

Just some guy and a blog….

As with everything we tend to learn from our mistakes the most. I would highly recommend, to the States, that they not only consider the impacts of the terms and conditions of their own networks, but also try to simplify their approach to the build. The LA-RICs project is a perfect example of over design, over legalizing and lack of willingness to support.

If you deploy under the Public Private Partnership model, that I’ve been evangelizing about, you won’t have any real issues, because all the risk of the build lays on the private investors, not the State. All the State has to do is say what it wants, i.e. we need a resilient and hardened Public Safety Broadband Network built under the specifications that FirstNet has laid out and then let the creativity of the private investment teams take control. Of course, its not that simple, but you get what I am saying. Essentially, the State doesn’t have to get down in the weeds and paint the pants on the ants on this one, just make high level assertions, and then sit back and monitor. In the end the State will be a board controlling entity of the new Public Private Partnership — and collecting revenue I might add.

Looking a little deeper into the execution strategy of LA-RICs we see another important point to raise — focus only on the civil construction, the LTE, microwave backhaul and your control center solutions first. You should expect that between 60-70% of the network will be civil construction related. Don’t convolute your requirements with unnecessary Public Safety additives, such as mobile radios, handsets or vehicle mounted routers. Put that into a follow-on proposal. The solution should be mandated to follow FirstNet guidelines for interoperability and focus on the approved vendors, by doing so you eliminate the need to be overly concerned with whether or not any chipset or Band-14 devices will work…they will because they were already tested by FirstNet. Build your LTE network first, then build your Public Safety solutions into it.

Also, being that the network is 60-70% civil related construction activities, pick your primes to match the amount of scope. Why put an OEM in the prime when all they have is less than 20% of the scope? For those that need some help, typical civil related projects are best done by EPC (engineer, procure and construct) type companies, most importantly, those EPC firms that still do large amounts of telecom work and are financially stable, but then again if you follow the Public Private Partnership model I’ve been talking about, you don’t have to worry about it, the Private Equity team has invested interest to pick the very best players.

Just some guy and a blog….

We can talk about the right LTE solution, or the interoperability; or whether or not police radios can communicate; or whether or not we have enough engineering resources to make it happen; but the one thing that will bring LA-RICS down, will be about the Terms and Conditions of the contract.

Basically, the terms and conditions are too stringent for most large contractors, or vendors, to accept. Getting your proposal approved to move to the next level puts you at the table to discuss the terms. But, unless there is a total rewrite of the verbiage, I’m afraid it will fail. If you over fortify your fort to keep the bad guys out, you unfortunately also keep the good guys out.

This is a lesson for all the other states to consider, when scripting your terms and conditions — make them fair. Consider the fact that we are deploying a customized solution, using contractors and vendors who are just as much resolute in making the job a success as you are. I’m not saying give away the house and the furniture, but be fair. In the end you can have the best laid plans for your deployment, yet still fall short because of the fear of the unknown.

It is understandable that you may face anxiety if you have an OEM lead your effort, after all their main mission in life is to sell equipment, this is why you need a major general contractor to lead your effort. One that is non-biased to the selection of equipment and has an honest reputation when it comes to execution. Your terms and conditions need to be balanced for all involved, and not heavily one-sided as LA-RICS. If you don’t, then you won’t attract sound bids, bids that will make it a success.

Just some guy and a blog….

A lot is happening in regards to LA-RICS that FirstNet should take notice. In my last blog entry I talked about the shortage of Tower Crews in the market. There is another key topic that needs to be addressed….civil construction.

More than 70% of the LA-RICS proposal relates to civil construction. Mainly this is due to the need for less complexity in the first phase of its rollout, which essentially puts the focus on the build and the first stage of implementing the technology (that being LTE and microwave). Why is this a problem?

In the telecommunications industry, mainly with the commercial carriers, the construction contractors, primarily the big engineering companies, are not competitive with the carreirs and the OEMs in that the services rendered by the carriers don’t require any complex hardening scenarios, like FirstNet does, ultimately means the carriers can go on the cheap by focusing on local turf players. Plus, by the carriers making their OEMs the responsible parties for building their networks, the carriers can simplify their contracts through lump sum services contracts tied to the sale of equipment. This means the carrier can call on the OEM anytime they want, for what ever reason, using that fixed sum. Kind of a all-you-can-eat model or what others might term as their ^$#^^%. Being that the OEMs are more concerned with profit through the sale of their gear, they tend to go cheap with their services portion (what they term delivery) by, confusingly, trying to apply paid services under the overheads of product development. When that happens they are forced to bring in cheap, low-cost, contractors to fulfill roles they simply can’t afford. Unfortunately, the first to be scrutinized are their construction contractors. This is why we don’t see the major engineering firms, i.e. Bechtel, Fluor, CH2MHill, etc.., building the carrier networks. They can’t compete in the EFI (engineer, furnish and install) market place. There overheads are too high to compete with the “mom-and-pops”. But now comes FirstNet!

FirstNet is a whole new beast. FirstNet needs the complex hardening characteristics that put it above the standard carrier design, plus, FirstNet is not really concerned with profit so much as to enable its self-fulfillment responsibilities within the legislation, that was passed to create the PSBN, as well as to attract private equity to pay for the deployments. This means the small players will not be the primary source of leading the construction effort — better known as TURF players. When you have 20 construction crews delivering concrete; digging 30′ holes for 70′ towers; pouring concrete pads; delivering steel towers through town; and installing vendor gear on top of those 70′ poles; all while controlling an army of contractors, leasing, zoning and environmental crews, it takes a big engineering firm to insure it gets done correctly.

Just some guy and a blog…..