Is a Verizon FirstNet Plan in the Works? FCC Letter Seeks Clarification

When the Commerce Department earlier in 2017 awarded the contract to build the FirstNet nationwide mobile broadband public safety network to AT&T, it wasn’t a done deal for all 50 states. Individual states still must opt in (which at least five already have done) or opt out of AT&T’s plan for the state. And as a Verizon FirstNet letter sent to the Federal Communications Commission July 24 illustrates, there are a lot of questions about what opting out means.

As Verizon notes in the letter, states opting out are permitted to use a different network operator to build and operate the public safety network within the state, as long as the network is interoperable with FirstNet. But there are some major gray areas, according to Verizon, including whether or not an individual state can use their selected carrier’s “network core” to support the state’s public safety network. The “network core” includes “data centers and systems used to interconnect users to each other and to other public networks,” Verizon said.