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05/30/2006Anaheim's Big Rollout Begins in June
The City of Anaheim is the 10th-largest city in California, with a population of 340,000 and approximately 50 square miles. Anaheim is on track to becoming the largest city (over 300,000) to roll out a completely citywide wireless network by the fourth quarter of 2006. The following is adapted from the remarks of John Nicoletti, Anaheim’s External Affairs Manager, who participated on the panel “Mega-Projects: Mainstreaming Broadband-Wireless Infrastructure” at the W2i Digital Cities Convention in Los Angeles, May 24–25, 2006.
Anaheim’s real interest in Wi-Fi began when the city was fortunate enough to receive some money from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security enabling the city to set up an enterprise virtual operations center, or EVOC, for first responders, a management team, and operations crew. It was a way for us to put all the assets the city had digitally in one place on the Web so that we could make decisions more quickly.
The project has since advanced to include GPS for all city vehicles and security cameras. Everything is loaded into the EVOC system. We wanted to take this all the way down to the guys in the cars, the firefighters in the trucks, our operations crews, and the planning department that was actually out in the field making building inspections.
Because all these things needed the wireless connectivity, the city used the DHS funds to help build its own wireless network. But the city went a step further when we were able to release an RFP and bring in three tremendous partners in EarthLink, Tropos, and Motorola to actually help build the city’s wireless network for residents, businesses and visitors. (Home to Disneyland, Anaheim has about 25 million visitors a year.)
EarthLink is one of the largest ISPs with 5.4 million subscribers, award-winning customer service, $1.3 billion in annual revenue, and $400 million in cash on hand. Headquartered in Atlanta, it also has a 600-employee hub in Pasadena, and it was selected to do a wireless network for Philadelphia. The city selected EarthLink as well after the RFP process. Anaheim will be the first large (over 300,000) city to roll out a completely citywide wireless program by fourth quarter of 2006.
Anaheim was looking for wireless broadband coverage across its 50 square miles. It didn’t want people cherry-picking the good spots. The service had to be ubiquitous and accountable to market forces to drive network upgrades. Minimizing the cost and involvement required by the city was a key, as was creating a business- and tourism-friendly climate.
To offer a competitive alternative to an existing broadband offering, EarthLink would fund, own, deploy and operate the wireless-broadband network. Thankfully, EarthLink saw Anaheim as a model partner just as we saw them as a model partner. We think that by showcasing Anaheim and EarthLink together, both of our brands get raised.
EarthLink pays all electricity consumption charges and the pole attachment fees per pole per month, and it purchases a dark fiber network that runs underneath the city. Some years ago, the city had a fiber company come in and lay fiber through a majority of the city. When that company went under, the city acquired those assets. EarthLink will use some of this dark fiber.
Anaheim grants EarthLink the long-term rights to use the street poles and the traffic signals, and has the option to purchase the Wi-Fi accounts as well for the city employees. This provides redundancy for the city’s EVOC system. The city will build its own 802.11a network, and this will provide backup for that network as well.
The city and EarthLink will work collaboratively to address the esthetics issue [associated with deployment]. The city will be 150 years old next year, and there are historic streetlights as well as a resort district with sign ordinances that includes the downtown Disney and Disney theme parks. The network will begin with a two-square-mile pilot, and by July the city hopes to have 20 square miles completed, with the rollout beginning in late June or early July.
Public access will include citizens, businesses, and visitors. Through our sales and hotel taxes, visitors represent about 60% of the city’s revenue, and it’s very important to keep these people happy.
Affordable fixed and mobile wireless access will be offered. EarthLink enables open access for all local and national ISPs, as well as public-safety access (police and fire departments), fast and secure access to a central database, GIS, photos, back-up and redundancy for the city’s own EVOC system, city inspectors, utilities, parking and meter readers, city workers taking offices into the field.
For our mayor, the digital divide is a key component. He went to EarthLink and said, I need to do something to address this, and one of the things they came up with is the Mayor’s Tech Scholar Program. Students from all over Anaheim can apply to receive a grant for access to the wireless network and a free computer. EarthLink and partners will provide up to 50 laptops. Libraries and community centers are part of this as well.
Another key initiative the mayor rolled out in his State of the City speech was a 311 system, an “Anaheim Anytime” program with a backbone on the Internet, and an IPTV initiative with another partner we brought on board.
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