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04/05/2007The Mobile WiMAX Story in Grand Rapids, MI
Grand Rapids (pop. 200,000) covers 45 square miles in western Michigan. In December 2006, the City Commission approved a contract with mobile-WiMAX network provider Clearwire to bring broadband-wireless service to the city’s local-government mobile workforce, businesses, residents and visitors. The contract is the first of its kind between a local government and Clearwire, which went public on March 8, 2007.
The deal was also an unintended first for Grand Rapids, which, in the summer of 2005, had hosted several Wi-Fi demos and seemed to be moving toward a mesh network deployment. In an interview with the Broadband Wireless Communities Report, Grand Rapids IT Director Tom McQuillan reflected on the city’s 2.5-year wireless planning journey. At the W2i Digital Cities Convention in Chicago, May 22–23, McQuillan will speak, along with Clearwire, on the panel “Public-Private Partnerships: A Diversity of Communities and Providers.”
 Q: This April marks your 25th anniversary as IT director for Grand Rapids. Can you say a few words about the history of your community?
A: Grand Rapids has been around for a long time. It used to be known as the furniture capital of the US. Both the loggers and the craftsman who made fine furniture resided here. Today, it’s the home of office furniture—Steelcase, Herman Miller, American Seating—though a lot of the home furniture has moved to North Carolina. Grand Rapids was the first community to put fluoride in its water 50 years ago. It’s also the center of Kent County, and is surrounded by smaller communities—Wyoming, Walker, Grandville, Kentwood, and East Grand Rapids. While many counties have been playing the lead role in the deployment of wireless, in western Michigan it has been Grand Rapids over the past two and a half years. By the way, these projects are not something you can do in 30 days. They evolve through due diligence, research, and some good business techniques.
Q: What is the current broadband availability in Grand Rapids?
A: I have a 3MB DSL connection at home for $25 a month. Plus you have to have a phone line. Cable is about $45 a month for Internet, and dial-up is $10. Satellite runs for $75-80 a month.
Q: What have been the drivers behind the City’s wireless plan?
A: There are a couple of different fronts. Mayor George Heartwell has been a strong advocate. He saw this as a really compelling need in the community. On a practical front, our public safety workers have a less than desirable infrastructure. We don’t have the capability to go out and buy a new infrastructure for them—to do Amber alerts, video streaming, wanted-persons alerts, field reporting, and delivering floor plans. So they were our first priority, and then digital inclusion, and then economic development.
Q: With public safety identified, you probably began thinking about the model.
A: We saw that we could leverage the City’s assets in a partnership with the private sector. That was really a high motivator. We also talked about other ways of doing it, including public ownership. We had all kinds of players, and some said they would finance it all. But this was not our original goal. I would define our project as being inclusive. We wanted everybody to participate, and we gleaned a lot from that.
I also went to Lansing [the state capital] and lobbied on behalf of the City, taking with me a resolution the City had adopted. Grand Rapids was never interested in competing with the private sector, but we wanted to leave our options available. If at the end of the day it made more sense to own and operate the network, we didn’t want this shut off to us. But that was never our goal. We had two public hearings. We were all over it.
Q: When did you first begin thinking about your wireless technology choices?
A: In 2005, we did what was called the Summer of Wi-Fi in Grand Rapids, and we included sister cities and other agencies from the get-go—the public schools, Kent County and its Health Department, Kentwood, Walker, the Police Department Headquarters, City Hall, and the Van Andle Institute, which is a high-tech medical research facility adjacent to the hospital. There were eight projects in all, done at the vendor’s expense, in areas that were a quarter to a half square mile.
Q: What was the reaction, and impact?
A: One of the sites was located in Eastown, in partnership with the nonprofit Community Media Center. It was a real melting pot of some businesses and the student population—kids recently coming out of school. The media center did a good job of marketing, and the project was phenomenal. The demo was up for close to a year, and when it was finally taken down by the vendor, well, it had been like giving candy to a baby.
The local media also wanted to participate, to be on the splash pages. They contacted the vendors directly, and our local print media was on one of the sites, and a local TV station on another.
We also needed to have some T1 lines in some cases, and AT&T (SBC at the time) donated these. At first they weren’t interested in local-government’s participation in wireless, but they participated at a kickoff ceremony on May 23, 2005.
Q: It seems the Summer of Wi-Fi generated a lot of momentum. What were your next steps?
A: We needed a consultant, and so brought in Excelsio, based in Atlanta. Bill Stark and Karl Edwards. They had assisted with the demo and wrote a report, and they assisted us with the RFP. When we issued the RFP, we wanted to make it as attractive as possible to the vendor community. Vendors want to know what your business model will be. To address digital inclusion, up to 5% of subscribers will quality for a rate of $9.95 a month. Beyond that, we will let the private sector dictate what’s appropriate. We understand that there’s a cost, a technology refresh, so we never spoke of a free system in Grand Rapids. We thought about the ad-sponsored approach, but does it work or doesn’t it?
Q: So the network is subscription based. What is attractive about the agreement to the City?
A: Clearwire will pay us the going lease rates to be on our assets. We will use their system for public safety, public works and land management. That’s why we wanted a partner to begin with. And at the end of the year, we have an account established so that whatever expenses the City incurs from this network, Clearwire will make us whole at the end of the year. We did not negotiate to get a percentage of the gate. This is a partnership, and we hope they are greatly successful and have adequate results.
Q: Describe the negotiations, if you can.
A: There were a lot of discussions that went on, but when it came down face to face, it was four hours and the contract was done. The RFP was clear, the response was pretty clear, and I would say that we have entered into a fine partnership. There’s a lot of work now to build the system—identifying local assets, permitting—but because the network is primarily for public safety, it has been easier to streamline the legal approvals.
Q: What happened between the summer of 2005, when you were doing Wi-Fi demos, and your decision to go with mobile WiMAX?
A: We sent our consultant and city staff—including Sally Wesorick, our administrative analyst—to do site visits, and we were able to have the results of these. For our mobile applications and public safety, the City determined that mobile WiMAX would be the preferable choice. We were all geared up to do Wi-Fi, but doing the site demos changed our minds. Our RFP had all the specs for Wi-Fi, because we have 11,000 utility poles, and we had been estimating about 1,500 APs.
Q: What is the implementation timeline?
A: We’re waiting on a couple of things. Clearwire is moving along nicely. They have hired Faulk & Foster do this work around the country—cell-phone towers, and meeting with staff and going through the process. On Dec. 5, our Commission approved the contract in a 7-0 vote.
A couple of things remain to be resolved. The first is the equipment, which must be certified. That has to happen first. The second are the vertical assets. We are hopeful they will have a system deployed this calendar year. There is an obvious pressure to have it up sooner than later.
For more information about Grand Rapids and its wireless planning, visit wirelessgr.com .
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