NTIA Suspends Funding for Los Angeles Regional Public Safety LTE Tower Project
NTIA said it is immediately suspending its early build funding for the Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications System Authority’s (LA-RICS) construction of a public safety LTE cell tower network in the city, after recent votes by the L.A. City Council and L.A. County Board to halt construction of portions of the network. The Council voted 12-0 Wednesday on its motion halting construction of LA-RICS project towers at city police stations and fire stations. The County Board vote March 24 halted LA-RICS construction at county fire stations. The city and county councils’ votes to halt the project make it “clear that LA-RICS faces substantial challenges in fulfilling the project's goals by the statutory deadline of September 30, 2015,” an NTIA spokeswoman said Friday.
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The L.A. city and county concerns ultimately stem from LA-RICS choosing to site its towers at municipal and county public safety facilities, which police and fire department unions have criticized as a possible health hazard due to the potential for radiation from the towers, a public safety official said. Siting the towers at public safety facilities reduces the cost of cell tower deployment, so placing facilities elsewhere could make the cost go up “significantly,” the official said.
NTIA directed LA-RICS to submit an amended project plan by April 13 that the County Council, County Board of Supervisors and NTIA "find acceptable,” in consultation with FirstNet, the NTIA spokeswoman said. FirstNet “intends to work with NTIA and LA-RICS with respect to any revised project proposal,” a spokesman said. A public safety official familiar with the situation told us Friday that NTIA’s decision to suspend its funding of the LA-RICS project isn’t surprising since the agency will need to fully assess the situation and “figure out what to do.” LA-RICS is one of five public safety agencies with a spectrum lease agreement with FirstNet, which is looking to the LA-RICS project as a pilot program it can use to glean feedback as it creates its national public safety LTE network. “Obviously anybody that’s knowledgeable about this would be disappointed in this setback, but I don’t think it’s a setback to FirstNet nationally,” the public safety official said.
LA-RICS has used only $31 million of the $154.6 million in Broadband Technology Opportunities Program grant funding that NTIA provided to the agency, and the remaining money is available only until the Sept. 30 statutory deadline, the NTIA spokeswoman said. LA-RICS will need to prove in its revised plan that it can complete construction of the project by Sept. 30, the spokeswoman said. “Our hope is that the project will be able to move forward,” she said. LA-RICS said March 24 it had completed construction of 14 of its planned 177 cell towers and was in the process of constructing 40 others. The planned 177-tower network includes upgrades to 62 existing towers, LA-RICS said. LA-RICS Executive Director Patrick Mallon was unavailable for comment Friday. Mallon’s office said it had received preliminary notification about NTIA’s funding suspension but hadn’t received an official notice.
L.A. officials, LA-RICS and NTIA will need to quickly resolve the issues that halted the project in order to meet the Sept. 30 deadline if Congress doesn’t extend that deadline for LA-RICS, a public safety official said. If that doesn’t happen, “it’ll be a serious setback,” the official said. Former FCC Public Safety Bureau Chief Jamie Barnett said he hopes all parties will be able to “find a way through” the issues that led to the construction halt. The FCC “thought it would be very beneficial” for FirstNet to look at projects like LA-RICS “where there were bumps in the road because we’d learn from those. It’s unfortunate that more of these projects aren’t up and running since the funding is disappearing.”
The L.A. City Council said LA-RICS would have to “bear the full costs of any required work not completed” by Sept. 30, with Los Angeles’ portion of those costs totaling up to 40 percent. “These cost uncertainties, coupled with continued withdrawals of other jurisdictions” from LA-RICS’ Joint Powers Authority, “delays in construction and concerns by end users at proposed LTE sites make it necessary to immediately halt the construction of the LTE system,” the L.A. City Council said.