No-bid $56M Motorola deal draws scrutiny over LWIN failures

The contract would also allow Motorola to supply portable radios, body-worn cameras and in-car video. State officials argue that combining multiple services and agencies into one contract could save the state $40 million by spreading expenses across the statewide network.   

Motorola secured its initial role in the system after Hurricane Katrina through another no-bid contract. It now supplies and maintains the technology at the heart of LWIN, a network plagued by recurring outages and coverage gaps, including failures involving equipment under Motorola’s responsibility.

Minutes from the Statewide Interoperability Executive Committee show that police, firefighters and other public-safety officials have repeatedly raised concerns about the network’s reliability and coverage. In 2024 alone, LWIN had recorded a cumulative 3,432 hours of outages across the network’s roughly 150 towers — equal to 143 days when added together. 

In January 2025, Bossier City’s police and fire chiefs asked the state to conduct a parishwide coverage test, citing service gaps that had left emergency responders without reliable radio communications while responding to incidents.

Similar concerns were raised several months earlier in Lafayette Parish. Broussard Fire Department Capt. Gerard and Lafayette Fire Chief Loren Haydale requested a parishwide coverage test, saying inadequate service had created technical problems that could hinder firefighters and other emergency personnel during dangerous calls.

“They've had some reliability issues, definitely. I think it's it's definitely time for for an upgrade, and they really need to look at the system they got now,” Rep. Daryl Deshotel, who chairs the cybersecurity committee, told The Center Square. 

Motorola “definitely” bears some responsibility for LWIN’s poor reliability, Deshotel said, citing the company’s existing maintenance contract. He added, however, that Louisiana’s exposure to severe weather has also contributed to the network’s difficulties. 

Deshotel also said he is open to proposals from other companies and that he “never said” that only Motorola could provide the new system.

“I know other people can,” Deshotel said. “If someone else is interested, they should present it to the state, absolutely.”

The Office of Technology Services, however, says otherwise.

According to the office, only Motorola can provide the communications “stack” needed to help parishes and state agencies communicate with one another. Longtime radio engineer and contractor Dominic Tusa says that claim is false.

Tusa said the radio infrastructure used by LWIN is “inherently interoperable by virtue of Project-25 performance specifications and technical standards.”

“If the network was 100% replaced by L3Harris or TAIT Communications tower site equipment, the entire 130,000 unit fleet of radios would continue to function,” Tusa said.

Tusa has consulted on public communications projects for years and recently submitted rebuttal testimony opposing Motorola’s contract, but it was never presented to or addressed by either the Committee on Technology and Cybersecurity or the budget committee. 

“LWIN’s consistently abysmal downtime performance statistics amplify the need for a fresh design, an open approach, and spirited competition for earning the State’s business,” Tusa wrote. 

Tusa said neither his company nor other potential competitors were notified that the state was preparing to award a contract to modernize the network, despite their ability to offer similar technology and services at a competitive price.

“We had been in contact with the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security for several years, and trying to discuss, bringing up the fact that the infrastructure was obsolete,” Tusa said. “They assured us that the replacement of the infrastructure would have to go out to bid because it was such a large project.”

Tusa said his company has also spent years trying to determine what Motorola’s existing contract requires the company to maintain and what consequences it faces when the system fails. He said the state has not provided those answers.

“If there was responsibility for them to maintain it, if there were failures, if there were penalties, if they didn't respond quickly enough, or the repairs were inadequate, we never could get that information,” Tusa said.

Tusa also questioned whether the proposed $56 million price reflects the true cost of modernizing the statewide network.

In 2009, Kansas City approved a Motorola radio-system project costing roughly $38 million. The contract covered the infrastructure, equipment, maintenance and training needed for a much smaller municipal system. LWIN, by comparison, contains roughly 150 fixed tower sites.

“There's 150 sites, and it's just not conceivable to think that's the only amount of money you're going to have to spend to do it,” Tusa said.