San Francisco Group Not Allowed to Continue Early Buildout of Public Safety Network
The FCC Public Safety Bureau denied a request from the Bay Area Regional Interoperable Communications System Authority (BayRICS) for special temporary authority to build a public safety network in the 700 MHz band, ahead of the national FirstNet, in an order Thursday. The group representing governments in and around San Francisco had been one of the most high-profile of the systems seeking to deploy an early network in the 700 MHz band. The bureau said BayRICS did not meet the criteria established by the FCC in a July order for grant of an STA (CD Bulletin July 30). Buildout of BayRICS could hamper FirstNet rather than help its deployment, the bureau said.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
BayRICS was one of seven applicants that received a grant from the NTIA through the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program in 2010 (CD Aug 19/10 p1), as the Obama administration actively encouraged the buildout of early networks. But NTIA suspended those grants this year following approval of the spectrum law in February, which partly funds FirstNet. FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell said BTOP recipients had been subject to “a bit of a bait and switch” by the government (CD Aug 7 p1).
The bureau determined that unlike Harris County, Texas, which got an STA earlier this month (CD Sept 4 p1), the San Francisco project did not meet the requirements of the July order. The order is signed by Public Safety Bureau Chief David Turetsky.
"BayRICS fails to support a showing of extraordinary circumstances,” the order said (http://xrl.us/bnqrym). “In particular, BayRICS acknowledges that no LTE equipment for this project has been purchased, delivered or installed, and no infrastructure has been actually deployed in the field. BayRICS also acknowledges that an agreement has yet to be finalized with an LTE equipment vendor.” BayRICS insists that “but for the partial suspension by NTIA of grant funds allocated to the purchase and installation of LTE equipment, such equipment purchase and installation would have occurred in April 2012,” the order said. “The fact remains, however, that none of the deployment that BayRICS identified as necessary to undertake was accomplished before or even after enactment of the Public Safety Spectrum Act, and no contract was finalized. Accordingly, we cannot find that this criterion has been met."
BayRICS also failed to demonstrate “substantial network deployment ... on the scale warranting a grant of an STA,” the order said. “The lack of any such substantial deployment indicates that BayRICS has failed to satisfy its burden of demonstrating that this STA would be necessary in facilitating the transition to FirstNet, and indeed such STA might hinder FirstNet’s ability to exercise its statutory obligations in the Bay Area.”
"We are still reviewing the Commission’s order but are disappointed in the result,"
BayRICS Authority Interim General Manager Barry Fraser said by email. “We keep hoping to find a silver lining in the decision.” Fraser had described rising concerns about stranded costs and the lengthening delays in early August (CD Aug 7 p1). Other suspended BTOP grantees have voiced the same concerns in the weeks since, as no clear or easy path forward became apparent (CD Sept 5 p1). “We remain committed to finding a path forward for the project,” Fraser said. “Our region needs these valuable public safety broadband tools, and we are all at risk if deployment is delayed."
BayRICS didn’t satisfy a requirement in the July order that any STA recipient be in a position to offer “timely service” well ahead of the launch of the FirstNet. “BayRICS estimates that it would still require at least fifteen months to become operational after it receives the grant money from NTIA, a period far outside the term of the authorization it seeks,” the order said. “In fact, it would take at least two renewals of any STA authorization before BayRICS would be prepared to deploy, and even that assumes that NTIA funds would be made available immediately, for which there is no guarantee. By way of contrast, at the time of Texas’s STA application in July of 2012, some operations had already commenced in Harris County pursuant to Texas’s waiver, and Texas estimated that operations pursuant to an STA for 14 sites would commence by September 15.”