By Ed Parkinson, FirstNet Director of Government Affairs
FirstNet recently delivered its Annual Report to Congress for Fiscal Year 2014 (FY14) (Annual Report) to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, and the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. The Annual Report provides a comprehensive summary of FirstNet’s operations, activities, financial developments, and accomplishments during the period between October 1, 2013 and September 30, 2014.
Among the many achievements during that time, the Annual Report highlights implementation of the Strategic Program Roadmap and actions toward achieving key milestones in the roadmap.
In FY14, FirstNet began its formal state consultation process, delivering Initial Consultation Packages to all 56 states and territories, and receiving 27 completed checklists back by the end of FY14. The initial phase of formal consultation meetings began in July 2014 and has continued into 2015. These meetings are paving the way for ongoing collaboration with the states and territories that will inform the development of 56 state plans for deploying the nationwide public safety broadband network.
In addition, FirstNet released a comprehensive network draft Statement of Objectives (SOO) and Request for Information (RFI), and a Public Notice on Proposed Interpretations of Parts of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 – a few of the many ways FirstNet offered opportunities for stakeholders to provide feedback on key considerations for executing FirstNet’s network strategy.
Other accomplishments included the adoption of the FirstNet Board Committee charters for efficient and transparent Board and management operations and growing the organization from 8 to 75 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees, which included the hiring of key senior management positions throughout the organization.
These are just some of the key developments from FY14. The Annual Report also reviews FirstNet’s partnership activities with local, state, territory, tribal, and federal government agencies and summarizes key developments from the five “Early Builder” Public Safety LTE network projects. In addition, the Annual Report provides a number of key statistics and graphics detailing Outreach Accomplishments and more.
You can find the entire Annual Report (PDF) on the FirstNet Resources page.
