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04/25/2006On the Road to RFP: Miami-Dade Forms SteerCom
At the initiative of Mayor Carlos Alvarez, Florida’s Miami-Dade County is convening a Steering Committee of local stakeholders to formulate recommendations for a low-cost, high-speed broadband-wireless infrastructure to service the 2,000-square-mile county area and a population of 2.3 million residents and 13 million visitors. The Steering Committee’s first meeting is May 18, 2006.
For the past year and a half, Ira Feuer, Special Assistant to the Mayor and Program Manager for Wireless Miami-Dade County, has been driving the process with the Mayor. Mr. Feuer will host an industry roundtable the week of May 8. Follow RFP/I News and Info in The W2i Report GO
As a service to the ecosystem of broadband-wireless stakeholders, each week The W2i Report features selected RFP news and alerts from MultiState Associates.
W2i: Who will serve on the Steering Committee?
Ira Feuer: We sent out invitations to high-level individuals in economic development, the clerk of courts, the government digital--divide area, department directors, higher education (University of Miami, Florida International University), the public education district representative, an Internet advocate from the University of Miami, OneEconomy, a community advocate (a bishop), an individual supporting regionalization among Miami-Dade, West Palm Beach, and Broward Counties, the head of tourism, and representatives from four municipalities and the Dade County League of Cities.
What is the Committee’s charge?
The steering committee will promote countywide connectivity, discuss wireless networking, and form recommendations for applications in various policy areas. They’ll meet four times and will submit a report to the Mayor around August or September. After that will come the drafting of the RFP. In between, there could be some focus-group effort or one workshop.
To what extent will the private sector participate?
There are no people who have the potential to bid on this project. We felt that any more members would make the committee too large and less productive. We’ve got enough opinions in here for now.
But there will be a roundtable discussion?
For the week of May 8, we’ve set up a wireless roundtable with the telco industry, including Bellsouth, Verizon, Sprint and others. I have also invited a systems integrator and two Wi-Fi and WiMAX representatives. I’ve asked BellSouth to submit an agenda.
We’re trying to get open and transparent discussion and have the industry voice its concerns about what Miami-Dade County is planning to do, in order to remove any confusion.
How will the network be funded?
The mayor expects this will be a public-private model.
What are the primary drivers?
This project is mayor-led on the economic and social side. We know up front that digital inclusion is a big part of the mayor’s perspective, as well as making healthcare more accessible.
On the government side, the anchor tenant really is going to be traffic department. Over five years, we expect to save $25 million in internal monies by switching from Cingular GPRS for 1,500 police vehicles and 200 fire trucks, as well as saving on all the leased lines that go out to all the traffic signals. That comes out to $5 million per year over five years.
There will be other savings, but we don’t want to quantify them too early. If this works out, we could begin using Wi-Fi phones for the county and saving tons of money.
Will this be countywide?
About 1,000 square miles of the county is dense, about 500 is agricultural and the rest includes parts of the Everglades. We have to service the whole area because of fires or accidents in the Everglades.
For more information on Wireless Miami-Dade County: http://www.miamidade.gov/mayor/wireless.asp
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