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Millions at Stake for LA Co-op if State Opts In on FirstNet

AT&T and a sprawling Los Angeles-area government communications cooperative were expected to finalize an agreement today to transfer and assign the authority's public safety broadband network to AT&T. The company, in turn, would pay $12 million for the assets and $2.5 million in replacement services to the entity and would provide up to 3,300 replacement routers, subscriber identity modules (SIMS) and devices.

AT&T and a sprawling Los Angeles-area government communications cooperative were expected to finalize an agreement today to transfer and assign the authority’s public-safety broadband network to AT&T. AT&T would pay $12 million for the assets and $2.5 million in replacement services to the entity and would provide up to 3,300 replacement routers, subscriber identity modules (SIMS) and devices. 

The development was reported today by RRMediaGroup.com, which closely covers telecommunications. 

The agreement between AT&T and the Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications Systems (LA-RICS) is valid only if California opts in to the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) and AT&T state plan, RRMediaGroup reports. California has not announced an opt-in or -out decision yet; Gov. Jerry Brown has until Dec. 28 to decide. In addition, the agreement is contingent on LA-RICS securing approval from multiple federal agencies. 

LA-RICS is one of five early-builder public safety LTE projects and the first that AT&T has purchased or publicly agreed to incorporate into the nationwide public safety broadband network. AT&T signed the agreement this week, and the LA-RICS Joint Powers Authority (JPA) board was expected to sign the agreement today.

The asset transfer includes 75 public safety-grade broadband sites, including 13 cells on wheels (COWs) and spare equipment. 

The agreement also requires AT&T to take over operation and maintenance of the LA-RICS network no later than July 1, 2018. If that occurs, LA-RICS would not enter a year-two maintenance agreement with Motorola Solutions, saving the authority $3 million.

Once the build-out begins and AT&T meets certain coverage milestones, it will begin receiving payments worth up to $6.5 billion from FirstNet.

In addition, AT&T sees FirstNet as an opportunity to expand into the first-responder market and also as an opportunity to build its government customer base, CFO John Stephens said at a conference last month.

“Quite frankly,” Stephens said, “when you’re talking to the fire chief or the chief of police or the people running the emergency medical services, it’s pretty easy to then go to the mayor or county commissioner and say, 'How about we do smart cities for you? How about we help you with your traffic problem? How about we help you with conserving water and power? Because we can put these monitors and sensors in at the same time we’re building out all of this capacity for the FirstNet network.'”

As previously reported by Techwire, FirstNet is touting its capabilities and widespread acceptance through its website and through social media channels, as well as on Facebook and as @FirstNetGov on Twitter.  

Techwire contributed to this report.