AT&T’s Sambar projects accelerated FirstNet buildout—‘a lot faster’ than five years for most of U.S.

SOURCE:     Urgent Communications

DATE:           February 27, 2018

AT&T already is deploying cell sites that operate on the 700 MHz Band 14 spectrum licensed to FirstNet and expects to finish the buildout—covering 95% of the U.S. population—well before the contracted five-year contract period expires in most cases, according to the AT&T executive heading the project.

Under federal procurement rules, AT&T—named last March as FirstNet’s nationwide contractor—cannot get paid for its deployment work until it receives the network task order from FirstNet, said Chris Sambar, AT&T’s senior vice president for FirstNet. But the telecom giant is not letting the absence of a task order slow its Band 14 deployment efforts, he said.

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