Hudson Hopeful Stakeholders Will Back Pending FirstNet Renewal Draft, Despite Early Criticism
House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Richard Hudson, R-N.C., told us he isn’t bothered yet by some former FirstNet Authority Board chairs’ early misgivings about a draft bill he’s writing to renew the public safety broadband network, likely with some governance alterations (see 2601200065). Lobbyists told us they will be monitoring a Senate Communications Subcommittee hearing Wednesday on FirstNet renewal for any signs that Michael Adkinson, the network's acting board vice chairman, has similar misgivings about Hudson's draft. Adkinson, who's also “performing the duties” of acting FirstNet board chair, is among the witnesses set to testify at the hearing (see 2601260058). The panel will begin at 10 a.m. in 253 Russell.
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Hudson emphasized in an interview late last week that he’s still “in the early stages” of moving the FirstNet bill and that his office hasn’t yet shared the full final draft text with public safety officials and other interested parties. Hudson said he anticipates that he will have the draft to circulate to stakeholders “soon,” potentially within the next few weeks. “Hopefully, when [stakeholders] see the draft, they’ll be for it,” he said. “Our hope is to bring all stakeholders together. We want to make sure we get it right, because the last thing I want is a big bureaucratic mess” that hurts FirstNet. “I’m confident we’ll find the sweet spot” and renew FirstNet before year-end, Hudson said. Without reauthorization, the network’s mandate will expire in February 2027.
“I haven’t seen” the criticisms about the draft last week from ex-FirstNet Chairs Richard Carrizzo and Sue Swenson, Hudson told us. Carrizzo and Swenson said draft FirstNet legislation, which lobbyists told us was a reference to Hudson's bill, could “mire public safety in a malaise of political red tape,” in part by increasing NTIA oversight of the network (see 2601210069). The ex-chairs made their comments based on information they received about the draft, not on the full legislative text. They urged Adkinson, other FirstNet board members and their advocates to raise concerns about the Hudson draft with members of the House and Senate Commerce committees.
Jeffrey Westling, a senior scholar of innovation policy at the International Center for Law & Economics, said he will be watching the Senate Communications hearing for signs of whether panel members believe FirstNet governance changes are necessary. “One of the issues that people have with FirstNet is the lack of oversight,” something the Commerce Department’s Office of Inspector General criticized in an August report (see 2508280059), Westling said. “I don't necessarily think there needs to be a [governance] change, but if there are ways where we can get a little more insight into that relationship between” FirstNet and AT&T, the network’s operator, “that would be a good thing generally.”
Carriers' 'Battle'
Westling also said he expects “some interesting discussions” during the Senate Communications hearing about whether a FirstNet renewal should maintain AT&T’s role as sole operator or open it up to other carriers, a move that rivals Verizon and T-Mobile have been advocating (see 2509250060). Scott Agnew, AT&T's president of FirstNet and public safety mobility, and Cory Davis, vice president of Verizon’s Frontline, its alternative public safety network, are set to testify at the hearing alongside Adkinson.
“AT&T does have the contract” to operate FirstNet, so “I don't think we're going to see Congress ‘break open’” the network, Westling said. However, lawmakers will likely examine how the public safety communications “market is addressing the theoretical gap between the communication networks of fire departments, police departments” and other agencies on Sept. 11, which led to FirstNet’s creation.
New Street’s Blair Levin also noted the stakes in the “battle” between AT&T and its rivals over the scope of FirstNet renewal, given that a “reauthorization that changes various aspects of [network] funding … depending on the details, could benefit [T-Mobile] and [Verizon] relative to the status quo.” New Street believes “the market assumes [AT&T] will win in Congress in the sense that Congress is likely to provide a reauthorization of [FirstNet] that does not materially affect the status quo,” he said. “Further, given the general dysfunction of this Congress and its limited ability to pass legislation, relatively simple maintenance of the status quo is generally more likely than a complicated revision of a program that has not generated political problems for the members.”
Major Cities Chiefs Association President Jeff Norman and National Sheriffs’ Association President Chris West took Verizon and T-Mobile's side last week, saying in a letter to House Commerce leaders that Congress “should ensure that all infrastructure paid for with [FirstNet] funds is being used to the benefit of all public safety users, not just the customers of a single carrier.”
“The fact that all of [FirstNet’s] multi-billion-dollar spending has gone to only [AT&T] has been exposed as problematic in recent years, [including when] FirstNet customers lost service” during the carrier’s February 2024 outage (see 2402220058), Norman and West said. “This is a risk our first responders simply cannot take.”