Peter Orne Wireless Government Subscribe to Newsletter Tell a Friend Print this Page 06/06/2006 Toronto Model Looks Above, Below, Beyond An agreement among the City of Toronto, its electric utility Toronto Hydro Corp., and two Toronto Hydro Corp. affiliates is maximally leveraging existing local assets—dark fiber below and the streetlighting system above—to generate value for the city, its local-government workforce, residents, and businesses with a broadband-wireless infrastructure. The following is adapted from the remarks of Sharyn Gravelle, Vice President, Wireless, at Toronto Hydro Telecom, who participated on the panel “Mega-Projects: Mainstreaming Broadband-Wireless Infrastructure” at the W2i Digital Cities Convention in Los Angeles , May 24–25, 2006. After New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston, Toronto is the 5th-largest city in North America, with a population of 2.5 million. In 1998, a restructuring resulted in the amalgamation of seven large municipalities, which resulted in an area called Old Toronto (37 square miles) and an area called New Toronto (about 130 square miles). The City of Toronto is the sole shareholder of its privately held electricity utility, Toronto Hydro Corp., which is the parent of Toronto Hydro Telecom, the communications affiliate that is driving the city’s Wi-Fi initiative. (The Wi-Fi project is not driven by the municipality.) Tortonto Hydro Telecom provides data services across a fiber network (including VoIP offering to enterprise customers). Customers include major financial institutions, mutual-fund companies, and banks. A second affiliate, Toronto Hydro Streetlighting, Inc., owns and maintains Toronto’s street and expressway lighting system. Three Catalysts Three catalysts drove Toronto to look at Wi-Fi: The first was smart-meter legislation. An energy crisis in Ontario Province led to Bill 210, which mandates that by the year 2010 all meters must capable of providing power consumption data at 15-minute intervals; and that, within a 24-hour time frame, a data collection center must feed back information to end consumers for their knowledge and information. There are some good opportunities for a wireless network in this type of application. Second, a year ago, within Toronto Hydro Telecom, there was no discussion of Wi-Fi whatsoever. It was an underperforming affiliate, and the new president of Toronto Hydro Corp. began to endeavor to grow the business and make it a more profitable affiliate for the parent and the shareholder (the city). The city’s fiber-optic network was underutilized. The third catalyst was the city’s operating deficit. Toronto Hydro Streetlighting had been maintaining and operating the streetlighting infrastructure, and at the end of last year the city sold those assets for $60 million to Toronto Hydro Streetlighting. This provided funding cash into the city and enabled Toronto Hydro Telecom to enter an agreement with Toronto Hydro Streetlighting, providing infrastructure to deploy a Wi-Fi network. This is not a city-initiated project. Toronto Hydro’s effort is to increase the value proposition for its existing customers and provide a new revenue stream and revenue growth, and ultimately to increase the value to the shareholder (the city). Business Case In preparing its business case, Toronto Hydro Telecom’s strategy would include the 802.11 standards—not hotspots but an ubiquitous Wi-Fi zone. After an initial capital investment, cellular networks, by comparison, require big operating expenses, including licensing, real estate, and transmission backhaul from the cell towers, resulting in millions and millions of dollars of operating expenses. The Wi-Fi business case Toronto Hydro Telecom put together would use unlicensed spectrum, presenting some very good pro’s with regard to nonlicensing fees. Interference may be an issue, but there are numerous ways to mitigate interference by proactive coordination. The network would use Toronto Hydro Streetlighting’s assets—some 160,000 fixtures within the city. For backhaul, Toronto Hydro Telecom would use its fiber-optic network. Further, Toronto Hydro Telecom (THT) would partner with the municipality on the devices and applications that will come into play over the network, including voice. THT began putting together its RFP in late December 2005. Because devices are ubiquitous in the marketplace, this has helped the business case. THT also used very conservative numbers with regard to usage in building our business case and projecting ROI. In 2006, the project is delivering about three square miles of access in the downtown core, which is called the One Zone. No authentication is required to go into a lot of the walled-garden areas on the network that are of value to the city as well—transmit maps, schedules, a tourism site, and the city’s site. The phased deployment begins with the financial district; moves north into the urban environment that encompasses universities and educational institutions, hospitals, and businesses; and works up to three phases in the north. The City of Toronto is built on a rectangular grid, and is relatively flat, which facilitates implementation. In approaching the development and delivery of the network, there are a number of considerations. For example: RF design. What do you want your network to do? What do you want it to be capable of? There’s a lot of talk about expectations being set, and networks needing to be rebuilt. This is very important, and THT took this very seriously and brought in needed expertise. Redundancy of backhaul is important so that you don’t have single points of failure. Implementation aspects are important. THT completed an RFP from Q1, the release, close and assessment of the RFP, and is now moving into initial implementation, encountering all the things that it has in asset, ensuring that there is 24-hour power, and so on. What do you need to do for grounding? Is the attachment infrastructure in all of the places that you need it? Security and Privacy THT has had several dialogues, discussions, and exploratory meetings with the municipal departments. Police services said it had learned about THT providing an open network that might enable illegal activities to occur. THT took this very seriously to determine how to provide access authentication for its free-trial period, which is six months from initial delivery, allowing authentication but providing access free. It has had discussions and exploratory meetings with the library services who are much more focused on privacy. Because THT is a utility telecom and operates a network control center, it does have monitoring as well as field technicians. Marketing Strategy Marketing has been part of numerous discussions, debate, and development within the organization as it deploys the network and delivers it. Topics include pricing models, partnering opportunities and advertising, as well as wholesaling, roaming, and discussions around partnering with complementary businesses to capitalize on THT’s two different assets. Municipal Applications Long-term success means partnering with all the city’s departments to provide cost savings, improved revenue streams, and free service for areas covered under the digital divide. THT will deliver full coverage and work with the municipalities on their initiatives and provide that value back into the shareholder (the city). back Related Items: • New York City, Traffic Solution • W2i Finalizes Digital Cities Joint State Briefing Program in Riverside, California • Minneapolis as Municipal Wi-Fi "Poster Child" • Los Angeles Catches the Citywide Wi-Fi Wave • OneZone, Toronto Hydro Telecom, Canada • Riverside `08 Comments No records were found. Post new comment: Only registered users can add comments. Please Log-in

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