Rivada Mercury Unveils Partnership It Hopes Will Build FirstNet
Rivada Mercury Tuesday unveiled a partnership, which includes still-unnamed wireless carriers, that submitted a bid last week to build FirstNet, discussing the proposal on a call with reporters. Also part of the Rivada team are engineering and construction firm Black & Veatch, Ericsson, Fujitsu Network Communications, public safety radio maker Harris, Intel Security and Nokia. A FirstNet official said Monday multiple bidders are contending for the FirstNet contract, expected to be awarded before Nov. 1 (see 1606060028).
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“Rivada Mercury offers a purpose-built, best-of-breed solution that aligns with FirstNet’s vision for a nationwide, interoperable voice and data network for public safety, and offers an innovative business model that ensures long term financial viability of that network,” the company said in a news release. “Rivada Mercury is a carrier-neutral, public-safety-first approach that guarantees first responders priority access during emergencies while simultaneously creating new opportunities for the commercial wireless market.”
Rivada Mercury, part of Rivada Networks, said one factor that differentiates its proposal is its use of the company’s Dynamic Spectrum Arbitrage (DSA) technology. This technology “enables the dynamic selling of excess critical-grade network capacity to commercial tenants without risk of interfering with first responders’ broadband access,” Rivada said. “The use of DSA gives public safety the ability to share and allocate bandwidth among enterprise tenants.”
“When you look at what FirstNet wants to achieve you cannot assemble a better or more dedicated team to deliver on this complex but critical program,” said Rivada Mercury CEO Joe Euteneuer, on the call.
Euteneuer said the participation of Harris is key. “Unlike any other public safety technology company, Harris completely gets FirstNet and they have supported the initiative from day one,” he said. A major national carrier and “several regional carriers” are also part of the team, he said. They will provide a mobile virtual network operator “solution on day one,” he said. All of the partners, including the carriers, plan to be part of the project “for the long term” even after FirstNet finishes construction of its network, Euteneuer said.
T-Mobile has taken itself out of the running for the FirstNet contract. AT&T and Verizon have both expressed some interest (see 1605310058). Euteneuer was chief financial officer at Sprint until last summer. He joined Rivada in May.
FirstNet Moving Beyond a Concept
FirstNet was mostly a concept until this year, but is becoming a reality, Chairwoman Sue Swenson said in remarks at a Public Safety Communications Research meeting in San Diego Tuesday. “That’s going to be a real change,” she said. “Running a network, versus talking about it, is a very different thing.”
Swenson noted that when she joined the FirstNet board in 2012 it had 15 board members and not a single employee. For the first six months, several board members were doing the work of management, she said. “I spent six months actually negotiating spectrum lease agreements,” she said. “We’ve come a long ways since 2012.”
FirstNet now has a CEO and president, Swenson said. Creating those positions was controversial as part of a federal program, she said. Some feared confusion. “I said I think the only people who are going to be confused are the people inside the halls of government,” she said. If FirstNet wants to run like a business, it needs a president and a CEO, she said. “I think it should indicate to you how we plan to run this organization,” she said. “We’re going to run it like a private sector company.”
FirstNet’s network will have to work better than any other that has ever been built, Swenson said. “We all get annoyed … when our text doesn’t go through, when our voice call is degraded,” she said. “On the FirstNet network seconds and minutes matter. It’s a matter of life and death. I just to raise that to say, 'this is not just any other network.'” FirstNet has to run like a business, Swenson reiterated. We don’t need “layers and layers of management,” she said. “We need to have a flat organization. We need to be nimble. We need to be agile.” Swenson said that will be her focus as FirstNet moves toward the approval of a partner to help build the network.