Finance Committee - 10/18/2017 Page 8
Mayor Donchess
There’s this first net project at the federal level. How will that relate or will it relate to wnat we are doing here?
Can you at least update the committee on that project and how it might affect us.
Mr. Mansfield
First net, congress has set aside billions of dollars to basically have public safety data in vehicles throughout
the country. They want it throughout every state across the country. AT&T has won the bid for that on the
federal side. Each state has an option of whether they are going to opt in or opt out of the First Net program.
Basically if they opt out, they would be doing it on their own. If they opt in they have to follow the federal
guidelines for ensuring the system is up-to-date and running. Basically what First Net is is a vendor, such as
AT&T, would give priority data communications to public safety, whether it be police, fire or EMS across the
board, across the country. If a major incident happened, what they could do is utilize their computers in their
vehicles and bump anybody who was non-public safety off the system. It basically gives the priority to be able
to utilize the case data. At this point in time, New Hampshire has not decided whether they are going to opt in
or opt out. There was an article in the Mission Critical magazine where Governor Sununu spoke about the
state and the process. We have a committee in the state that has been working for the last two years to
determine whether or not the state should opt in or opt out. No decision has been made at this point in time.
The state did go out to bid on a First Net service. A RFP was submitted. There was a vendor that was chosen
even the state did not decide whether they were going to opt in or opt out of it. Basically it has gone nowhere
in this point in time. Weé still are up in the air on where that is going to go.
Basically, they need a lot of tower sites within the state to be able to do this and make the communications
happen. More than likely, they will be coming to us to piggy-back off of our towers if possible, even off our
radio systems to make this operational. We’re not at that point now. | don’t anticipate anything moving on this
for another couple of years, two to three years. There’s still a lot of unanswered questions out there.
Alderman Clemons
How does that relate to what’s in front of us? Is it compatibility? Is that the question?
Mr. Mansfield
The system that we currently have is compatible with that system.
Alderman Clemons
With the federal system?
Mr. Mansfield
It’s actually a private-public partnership, for the most part it’s AT&T that would be partnering up with the federal
government and states to start deploying the system.
Alderman Clemons
But it’s compatible with that. In other words if the state went on its own, it might not be compatible?
Mr. Mansfield
There’s supposed to be guidelines out there. Again, nothing is set in stone right now, but there are supposed to
be guidelines. That was part of the discussion in this article today, making sure that it is interoperable with
other entities as well, even though the federal government is trying to prevent those other entities from coming
in.
