preemption but it's been done manually. we are doing testing in our labs in boulder right now to validate its more than just vaporware. we have vendor technology in our labs and we are testing it so the good news is that it works. i think it's important to mention because this is a big change for public safety. public safety is used to work and vertical organizations fire law enforcement ems. this is creating a very horizontal ability to communicate. as a result of that we have an advisory group called the public safety advisory council and they are looking at how this new organization is going to help local operations because i think it's going to change the way public safety operates. i think it's good but i think it's going to be different and we are going to enjoy as we see this technology rollout things that we aren't thinking about today much like you say in technology for consumers. i think it's very exciting but it's going to be a big change for public safety.

those are the important things about the network that will make a very big difference. >> thank you. senator fischer. >> thank you mr. chairman. ms. swenson can you give us some idea when this is all going to be fully operational? do you have a window of time there? >> its eyes a great question. as i said we have the strategic roadmap that lays out the timeframe of getting tourist a consultation issuing the rfp getting the response and obviously awarding to the winner of the process. while we don't know today is what might happen in that process. so if we were unencumbered by external factors than we could probably give you a more definitive timeframe but my expectation based on what everybody has told told me the government as we might see a few bumps along the way. the goal is to obviously get

that rfp out get the response is then put that information together and deliver plans to each of the governors of every state. what happens during that timeframe we are hoping is smooth and i hope you get a sense of the sense of urgency we feel about this and how hard we are working to get it done as quickly as possible. >> you think you will reach that 2020 two-goal? >> oh yeah. if we don't we should be shot. [laughter] >> mr. chairman i don't even know how to respond to that. >> we will find a lesser answer. >> appreciate your honesty on that. when we are looking at the gao's estimate that you are going to need 12 to 47 billion over the next 10 years, how do you think first of all do you agree with those numbers? >> as i said previously i think

the gao report has looked at some assumptions and some estimates where they have no visibility to the assumptions that are made. i will tell you early in the process to early folks who are with firstnet along with the board looked at a financial model around some assumptions. we are pretty comfortable based on our experience with the cost structure to do this sort of thing. think the revenue side is harder but we have made reasonable assumptions. we have incorporated that into the lot to say is this even feasible? can we even do this and i thought that was a very important process to go through because why expend federal funds to go down this path only to find out that if they ended it. >> can we do at? >> as we can assuming the assumptions we have our realize which is why the rfp process is so important and that's why i think the public notice i would like to highlight the public notice we issued on monday is critical to the rfp process

because it starts to answer some of the questions that i think were maybe unclear in the legislation that we were trying to clarify before we go out with rfp. we believe that it can happen and it will only be validated through the rfp process. >> if by chance that's not going to be enough money what do you see happening? i the states going to have to pick it up? are we looking at turning firstnet into a self-sustaining entity? where do we go from there? >> i think it's an excellent question. we have talked a lot about that inside of firstnet and if we don't realize what we believe the value of the spectrum as i mean we could literally fold up our tents and go home which is not a good outcome which is why this is such an important process which is why we are alpha state consultation reaching out to people. think about this we have to provide a compelling value proposition for first responders.

we are in a different situation than the other projects. we have to actually deliver to our first responders something that they think is worthwhile. so i think it changes the dynamic in the way we approach this in terms of how we approach the project. so we are working hard to make sure that happens but if we don't realize the value of that spectrum is going to be very challenging to be self-sustaining. >> do you think firstnet would put in a claim for more of the money that comes from the sales spectrum? >> we are not looking for more money actually. >> that is nice to hear. >> that's rare but we take that very seriously. i think that's why you see such a dedicated team at firstnet and senator booker talked about the importance of having people have done this before so you have a sense of confidence that can be accomplished. why it's so important at the rfp be very well done.

we believe that there is interest in our spectrum so we have a fundamental believe and we validated that through conversations we had with folks. it's like gold. it's really valuable. even with priority and prevention it's very good spectrum and i think we have people out there who are more than interested in being part of that. we are confident that will prove to be the assumption that is correct. >> thank you very much. thank you mr. chair. >> senator blumenthal. >> thank you mr. chairman could i found the remark earlier ms. swenson that you made somewhat staggering. it takes nine or 10 months to hire someone, did i hear correctly? >> unfortunately yes he did. >> so you have the funding meet

in the spectrum it's necessary to set up and commonly identified that you are in fact including procedures that are ossified and completely inadequate to the task that you face. what can be changed and those procurement policies that have handicapped the government and urgent task. >> as i said senator we are working with the department of commerce and the secretary's staff to see what we can do. in addition to the federal process we have some things

internal to firstnet and commerce we are looking at the cycle time of that. why is it taking two months to hire a firm to hire people? it shouldn't take that long so we are looking to see what we can do to compress that which would significantly enhance our ability to get the job done. i'm telling you we are working very hard and i would love to report back to you on the progress we are making on that. >> in each of the steps you have identified it has to be a partner correct? >> you know i am not as familiar. i think deputy secretary anders might be able to answer that. >> if i could give a little more context which is one of the things we have done is moved firstnet to the commerce personnel system which is a more streamlined and flexible process than the normal rfp process. their undoubted challenges

because of the safeguards -- safeguards built on the lot in terms of hiring within the federal government. the needs of firstnet are incredibly special. >> what about ms. swenson and mr. secretary giving firstnet direct hire authority? >> we have made that request. it has not been granted. >> when did you make that request quite? >> i would have to pay -- look at the exact date. eight or nine months ago and part of the reason we have guns to the alternative cap system -- >> would the said to? >> up until now it's not granted in what they think the hiring is. >> have they responded negatively? >> negatively. >> i would clarify that a little bit. they responded negatively to our first request and they have not responded to our second request.

>> when was your second request? >> august of 2014. >> august 2014 so that a little while ago. let me just suggest that for the first year and a half i believe i'm correct in saying your board functions as the staff and now you have 110 employees which seems inadequate. the success of this very important national priorities depends on having the best and brightest so there is simply no way you can compete for the limited pool of highly-skilled talented people who are being hired by google apple, you know

there is a huge demand for these people. you are telling them sorry, we can't let you go for another 10 months and they are going to say thanks but no thanks, right? >> in fact they have. >> i'm sure they have in large numbers. so if i may respectfully suggest the federal government is failing you and lest we expose you to capital punishment i think we have an obligation to compel the relevant agencies especially opm and anybody else to do better and to do more and do it more quickly so that you can succeed in this task. >> senator we really appreciate that. thank you for your comments. >> thank you senator blumenthal. senator cantwell and then senator wicker. >> thank you. one of the issues that this

strikes me in this discussion is how fast you can go and whether there is more the private sector can do but i think the key phrase here is interoperability. my understanding is that some of those pilots were turned down because they weren't ensuring interoperability. i mean the private sector can get it done in a minute that i guarantee you'll be a closed loop system based on a technology that they build and build and build off of their technology so you want to give somebody the grand prize i guess you can do that but the issue is making sure we have interoperability. is that correct in that is why some of the pilots were delayed because they weren't conquering that? >> let me respond to that and i can respond pretty specifically. as a board member in the beginning days of first firstnet negotiated releases. the projects were in existence prior to firstnet becoming a reality. they were put on hold because they were focused on broadband

and to make sure they were consistent with what we were trying to do with firstnet. the good news is we were able to move some of those forward. some of the difficulties we have experienced one of the requirements was that the plan that the organization presented had to be self sustainable. in other words they needed to show financial viability. some of those cases it didn't turn out to be that. i will tell you personally senator i've personally worked very hard to get those projects completed because we know how important they are. as i said we have learned a lot from these projects that we have incorporated into the technical work that the technical team is doing. the government assets and how we might utilize those i think the ntia has been involved in that activity as well. they have a different role than firstnet does. i will tell you we worked hard to get those projects on board because we are learning a lot from them. >> okay so i want to ask you

about when we will see functionality because it is important. while i understand the issue of interoperability and making sure that is implemented throughout the network i think these state grants are very important. we had this horrible incident almost to its one-year anniversary which was the zero so mudslides which literally cut to communities in half and they were without medication required 30 different agencies to respond. i think everybody now knows exactly what we want and what it's going to take in this particular area because of the typography. you have some communication challenges just a nap. literally at one point we were trying to greenlight basically putting the broadband but -- backup for a mile connected to the trees. that's what we had to do. we couldn't have residents we

had over 40 people lost their lives in this incident. everybody wants to respond that we didn't have broadband communication until we greenlighted putting it back up and hang it on choodry limbs so first responders and everybody could respond. i hope that we will see the urgency that we have to get some of these pilots done and that we take these state plans and make them so up the actual needs so that then you can lay your work on top of it in a faster fashion and we get some of these demonstrations and pilots up and running right away. so when would we have that functionality? >> let me see i'm trying to listen to all the comments that you have been there. i think it's important to understand that the pilots are important for us relative to building out our nationwide network and that is our first priority. i know that there are many people who would like us to do many more pilots and i will tell

you it would be a bit of a dilution of our efforts as we indicated where we are resource constrained at this point so what we want to do is focus our effort and energy on the public notice we just issued which by the way really did a lot to support the rural states issues if you have seen that. it's a really important issue for the coverage there. >> when would we see functionality of one of those? >> the functionality of one of the pilots? actually there's a pilot in colorado in the boulder area that is up and functioning. we have another project that is not a broadband project but it's in harris county texas and they have an operational system. in fact i've visited harris county in january of 2013. they are actually experiencing in using these with first responders to test the interoperability. some of these projects are up and running. in new jersey we have a

deployable project. they are in the process of actually getting a deployable so they can test the ability to operationalize those deployable's. >> i'm sure our state is very aggressive and i know my time is running out here. we will have to get some details about what her state is doing and when we will see a pilot within the state of washington. >> we will be happy to spend time. >> thank you senator cantwell. senator wicker. >> thank you mr. secretary. the broadband technology opportunities program or btop came about as a result of the stimulus act of 2012 when the tax relief act came along and now we have firstnet. mississippi was one of the grantees under the top and moved forward very aggressively with greater speed than any other recipient. and the department and our

delegation have had numerous discussions about her disappointment with how this has turned out. i understand firstnet could not reach a spectrum lease agreement with the state of mississippi. this was unfortunate because tens of millions of state and federal tax dollars have been spent significant fiscal assets deployed and the system weeks away from going live mississippi would have provided an early demonstration of the great potential broadband holds for first responders. i assume you're aware that the entire delegation met with the assistant secretary strictly in 2013 to press upon him how important restarting the original vtop project was put at that time i tried to help firstnet in the state of mississippi retune agreement. assistant secretary tried to work with us to find a way forward and of course this has

not come to version. as saving taxpayers money by quote avoiding investments that might have to be replaced if they are in compatible with the ultimate nationwide architecture under the public safety broadband network unquote however one of the fundamental questions imposed on all 700 megabirds -- megahertz to the plate network that is fully interoperable. so that argument does not seem to hold water. furthermore mississippi's contract with its vendors requires complete compliance with quote all the rules, specifications and functionalities unquote. that may change per the fcc were ntia during the buildout of a nationwide network.

understandably we in mississippi are disappointed and upset. given these assurances by the state of mississippi and the vendors how exactly is the ntia saving taxpayer money especially when in fact the agency is telling mississippi to spend money to dismantle the lte equipment already deployed? >> senator as you know there were originally seven pilot projects that we looked at. for them were approved in three of them are not approved including the 70 million dollar mississippi grant. we were deeply disappointed as well because he wanted to try to make this work but at the end of the day the state in nta couldn't agree on terms because the state's plan didn't provide the necessary level of detail we needed to meet the statutory requirements. as you know under the btop program there were specific statutory requirements that this had to meet and the mississippi

plan that came forward was not a viable alternative that medbee statutory requirements. one of the things that ntia is committed to -- the. >> to requirements from 2012? >> i believe from the original btop program and my understanding is the mississippi program didn't provide broadband so that was one of the challenges of this. but look we wanted to try to make this work or at the firstnet team worked very hard and long hours with mississippi trying to find a way to make it work. through the projects were not able to go forward because for one reason or another including this one. ntia is working with the state of mississippi to dispose of the equipment. mississippi the medical communications equipment held by the hospitals and the ambulances will be retained in mississippi so we are trying to keep as much of that value but ntia is committed to helping to dispose of the access equipment frankly

to avoid a loss to taxpayers. >> mr. secretary we were weeks away from employment. mississippi was a leader in deploying the network for first responders. based on the statute that was enacted in 2009 with the federal government make the decision to dismantle the original btop project forcing the state to start over. mississippi has already accomplished the goals of ntia's implementation program which is why the state turned down the offered grant. mississippi today has a mature governance structure for the network created in 2005. the state was only weeks away from turning on its broadband network. when the btop grant was suspended by ntia i hope that your offer to continue working with the state comes to fruition. ms. swanson was invited over a

year ago to come to mississippi. for whatever reason that meeting has not taken place yet. but i can tell you that we in mississippi are entire delegation republican and democrat are very concerned about this, very disappointed at the wasting of federal money from the economic stimulus program. and we are particularly disappointed that netcom is not able to go forward, a project that has received essential equipment and would allow first responders to transmit life saving data to provide hospitals with support in vital medical services to proceed on. i time has expired but i hope this hearing will result in some

purposeful action on the part of the department and firstnet to make things work in mississippi. >> thank you senator richter. senator daines. >> thank you. i come from montana and in a state like montana we have almost the tale of the two types of them are meant rural and permits across most of our state and the same time because of technology it is removed geography is a constraint. we are able to build world-class companies in montana because we can attract and retain great talent because of the quality of life we have. it also helps us improve our first responder services, the technology and encouraged in terms of what firstnet could do to improve public safety by coordinating these communication capabilities.

when we have incidents that are 50 to 100 miles away in terms of a medical emergency we could bring electronically the doctor to the location of the incident. it's the difference between life and death. in a state like montana we have some very important national assets. we have a third of the nation's icbms located in montana, 150 warheads. we share a border with three canadian provinces. so without perhaps this background i'm concerned about the definition of rural. firstnet plans to deploy on top of existing infrastructure first and that makes complete logic, makes perfect logical sense to me except for the fact that states like montana have very limited 4g lte coverage and in fact in tribal lands is virtually nonexistent. what sort of contingency plans do we have for these types of

areas like for example the northern cheyenne reservation that doesn't even have 3g service let alone 4g lte and perhaps secretary maybe you can take the first shot at that. >> yeah with your permission senator i would like to allow suit to take this. >> she is smiling. >> first of all i think it's important senator that you know that the public notice that we issued on monday takes a bold step about rural and making sure that rural is taken care of in this total plan. so we know how important it is for states like yourself and so we are spending a lot of time on that particular topic. we also in her first public notice senator asked for public comment on what rural meant because in the legislation it could have different interpretations we want to make sure we have consistency. we have got a lot of good feedback on that and we will

incorporate that. i'm assuming that your state can give us feedback on that particular topic. if not we are happy to take that. in terms of tribal i think it's important you understand that we take the tribal consultation very seriously. as you know there are 566 recognized tribes in the u.s.. all the different states have abraded tribes that we need to consider. tribal organization should be part of stay consultation so when that occurs the single point of contact it's important that we make sure that representation is actually part of the state consultation. we as an organization hired and have a person dedicated to the tribal organizations so they are fully represented. we also as part of the public safety advisory council of the tribal working group. one of our board members mcguinness has been traveling the u.s. meeting with all the different organizations so i dissuade to no rural is important, tribalism port and i believe we are taking steps to make sure those areas work.

>> what's the preliminary thinking on the infrastructure that doesn't exist today will they wait until infrastructure is there or circumvent that her mother had them put this infrastructure in? >> that is part of our rp process and would like to get feedback from the partners in the vendors who will be responding as how we cannot only cover and uncover rural. the idea is that we would make that as high a priority as our urban covers. i think there were some comments about leveraging existing infrastructure. part of the rfp needs to address the rural coverage and the folks responding to the rfp need to respond and how they plan to do that. >> of course the paradox here is some of those areas are in the greatest need of telecommunications. >> we understand which is why we are making it up ready. >> as i understand and also maybe ms. swanson the governor

of each state would have the option to accept or opt out of the firstnet plan. i'm not hearing that montana is planning to opt out but i know there was curiosity rounded the governor did opt out of the plan they are responsible for coordinating and submitting a plan to the fcc. and a sense of what the costs associated with opting out versus accepting the plan for some of the states might be? >> it's a great question and i think a lot of people are trying to figure that out. i think it's important to understand you are not opting out of the nationwide network. you are assuming responsibility for building your own radio access network. all states where do do you use radio access network or builder on will connect our national core. that is what creates the interoperability across the nation. in terms of the cost that would be something for your team in montana to determine. we are going to give the governor a plan that will handle the coverage we have in terms of priorities and then we will give you what the cost of that is where the pricing to your end-users.

you will then have that to make a determination as a state in the governor makes that decision as to whether or not you want to take on responsibility. >> so we will have a cost if there was a knockout? >> we want to determine your costs. you will determine that will determine data and issue an rfp and determine that. we will tell you what our plan is. you can then compare it to what you think building your own radio access network would cost. >> thanks for that know i'm out of time mr. chairman. >> thank you very much mr. chairman. thank you to you and ranking member nelson for holding this important hearing. as a former prosecutor and cochair along with senator burr of the 911 caucus in the senate i know how important is to support our first responders. i'm also the state that had that bridge collapse and while everyone saw on tv the firefighter, the first responder show up and repeatedly dive into that water to look for survivors and all the work