The First Responders Network Authority has extended the deadline for responses to its call for bids for a national public safety LTE network for another two weeks. Request for Proposal responses are now due by May 31, and FirstNet still plans to award the roughly $6.5 billion network contract by the first of November.
The RFP was released on Jan. 13th and its original deadline date was April 29; that was later amended to May 13. Now, FirstNet has moved the deadline to May 31. Capability statements, in which vendors outlined their technical ability to achieve FirstNet’s network objectives, were optional and had to be provided to FirstNet by March 31. The FirstNet leadership indicated that the capability statement responses played a part in extending the RFP deadline again.
“Our decision to extend the deadline for final proposals was driven by both the volume and nature of the capability statements as well as requests for extensions we’ve received from interested parties,” said FirstNet CEO Mike Poth in a statement. “We believe this date affords prospective offerors the opportunity to fine tune their proposals and finalize any teaming arrangements and/or subcontractors, and we remain on track to award by November 1.”
Since February, FirstNet has been publicly responding to vendor queries about various aspects of the RFP (available in entirety here). It has also held a pre-proposal conference on the topic, and the RFP was central to discussions at the International Wireless Communications Expo last month.
FirstNet has posted an amendment to the RFP, which specifies the new deadline date as well as adding a few statements to the RFP that require bidders to “describe the proposed approach to ensure strategic alignment and mitigation of sales and marketing channel conflict among teaming partners to ensure adoption and use of the [national public safety broadband network].”
