New York Governor David Paterson's office has terminated on Thursday the state's $2 billion Statewide Wireless Network (SWN) contract, after years of delay and recriminations between New York and vendor M/A-COM. The state's Chief Information Officer and the Office for Technology told M/A-COM it has failed to deliver a satisfactory and acceptable public-safety communications network and is in default of the contract.

This was an expected decision, and that's because the misunderstandings between New York and M/A-COM reached a climax last summer, when State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli issued a report maintaining the network didn't work right. M/A-COM, a unit of Tyco Electronics, has had various networking contracts with the state since 1960.

The main contract for SWN began in 2004, as the network was planned to link public-safety agencies across the state from the tip of Long Island to Niagara Falls. The state awarded the contract to M/A-COM over its only competitor, Motorola. By the end of 2008, New York State had spend $54 million on the project, with no concrete results.

Unfortunately, this means the state has no plans at all for a statewide public-safety network, but New York State still hopes to build the network. That will take more time, as issuing a new request for proposal to find another vendor could take up to 18 months.

It really looks like it's getting harder and harder to build a statewide network, as problems such as interoperability and quality-of-service levels appear. One solution would be for the smaller communities to move faster than the state and award contract to companies with local ties. This way, the whole state could have a network in no time, if all the small cities cooperate.