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 couldnt agree on terms because the states plan didnt 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 didnt 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 missi
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 dont 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
Commissioner chair tom wheeler tells open internet advocates that the fcc vote on internet rules was the proudest moment in his public life. The event focused on the recent vote and work with the fccs spectrum office. It runs 20 minutes. Good evening, everybody. So great to see all of you. I think we have more here tonight than last year. The gentlemen i am about to talk to and introduce also needs no introduction he is the man of the hour as someone at my table said. I think he is a man of courage and we all applaud this service and creativeity and the inspiration he has brought to the federal communication system. We are excited to hear what you have to say and grateful for your time tonight. Please join me in welcoming chairman tom wheeler. [applause] hello. How are you doing . Nice party you are having. Just having a couple friends over. It is great to be here. Thank you for joining us. We are so grateful. You have been busy. Every day at the fcc is like sunday on the farm. You kno
Access network would cost. Im out of time. Thank you. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. Thank you to you and the Ranking Member 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 it is to support our First Responders. Im also the state that had that bridge collapse and while everyone saw on tv the First Responders show up and repeatedly dive into that water to look for survivors and all the work of the Emergency Responders, what people didnt see were the 77 men and women at the Minneapolis Emergency Communications center who took those calls. While a number of people died, it could have been so much worse because people were able to get to hospitals. There were dozens more cars in there and people survived because of our First Responders. I have worked hard to strengthen our countrys Emergency Response network in part by sponsoring and working on the legislation that led to the creation o
First net is their first priority. Because this is no pra jorty of comment about people that we work with, but first net is a secondary item for them. They have a fulltime day job and we pile on top of that. We probably dont get the urgency that we feel about things. So to the degree we can take accountability and responsibility for those functions well obviously follow all the rules and regulations but we would have an opportunity to move more quickly. Id like to see what we can do about improving that and also taking responsibility from commerce and obviously e we wouldnt do that until such time were prepared. We went through that process with our finance organization. Initially, they provided support for us. Today we do a lot of that work ourselves. So i think we have demonstrated we can bring in the right resources with the right talent and training, put the controls in place to cause people to feel comfortable to fullfill that. Id love for you to submit more of that for the record