Abstract:
In 2005, the City of Mesa, Arizona -- outside of Phoenix -- was in crisis. There were 2 tax referenda on the ballot that year, layoffs rumored, and a general feeling that the city government was inefficient and slow to adopt new ideas. Meanwhile, neighboring cities such as Tempe, Phoenix, and Scottsdale were moving ahead with municipal wireless networks. Mesa, in fact, received numerous unsolicited proposals from vendors, but had no plans to move ahead, despite the complaints from residents about the high cost and slow speeds of current Internet provision.
On February 16, 2006, Eric Norenberg -- Director of Information Technology for the City of Mesa -- presented to the Downtown Development Committee a Request for Proposals developed by his office and that of the city attorney. Norenberg indicated that the City Council may review proposals in the next few months, and that they hoped to have a network in construction by winter or spring of 2007. The initial cost to the city was expected to be $25,000 to $50,000, with estimated cost savings per annum of $150,000 to $200,000.
Goals of the project include: (1) border-to-border mesh connectivity, thereby providing total mobility to the City workforce; (2) ubiquitous and reliable coverage for Mesa residents and businesses; and (3) boosting the user rates of the City's online services. Specifically, the network would aim to meet the needs of building inspectors, park rangers, police officers, utility workers, and other municipal departments heavily dependent on field work and access to applications such as GIS and surveillance. Further value would be added to the network by extending usage to schools, downtown commercial establishments, and residents/tourists.
The City of Mesa offered use of municipally-owned street lights, traffic signals, and buildings to the service provider to deploy the network. As of September 2006, EarthLink and MobilePro were finalists for the bid.
In the spring of 2007 and early summer, negotiations with EarthLink and MobilePro were on hold as each company worked through organizational issues. In April, MobilePro asked that negotiations be put on hold as the company pursued a spin-off of its wireless division. The spin-off of Kite Networks was anticipated to be completed in a few weeks. In fact, the sale of Kite Networks was not announced until mid-July. As of mid-September 2007, the status of the purchase of Kite Networks by Gobility is still uncertain.
Meanwhile, EarthLink staff asked that Norenberg and his team table negotiations as its new CEO took a hard look at the EarthLink muni Wi-Fi projects and pending contracts. At the end of August, the City of Mesa received a letter from EarthLink withdrawing from the Wi-Fi project. The letter states that EarthLink is realigning its business model and is only pursuing projects with cities that will commit to purchase services from EarthLink at the outset of system deployment. The City of Mesa could not make such a commitment under the system development plans that were discussed with EarthLink.
Accordingly, there are no active proposals to consider for the Mesa Wi-Fi Mesh project. While the City still believes there is need for such a wireless network to serve the needs of City staff and to provide an affordable Internet option to residents, the marketplace and business models have changed sufficiently to warrant developing a revised strategy, business model and RFP if it is decided to pursue Wi-Fi in the future.
Click here to see Eric Norenberg's presentation from the Tempe Digital Cities Convention.
