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03/03/2009Q & A with Steve Reneker, CIO of the City of Riverside, CA
Steve Reneker, with the support of Mayor Ron Loveridge has lead the Riverside Wireless network deployment in a unique public-private partnership with ATT. Besides its public access objectives, the emphasis was put on leveraging the city wide infrastructure to improve government services productivity and public safety, leading to a broad local government anchor tenancy agreement with ATT. This prompted W2i to single out the Riverside project in early 2006 as one of a handful of experiments along with the city-wide projects of Minneapolis (MN) and Brookline (MA)to be closely watched as early proof-points. Daniel Aghion, W2i's Executive Director, spoke with Steve Reneker on March 2, 2009 Q: Welcome, Steve Reneker. How is the City of Riverside doing in these troubled times? A: Riverside has had its fair share of the present economic slide, with a rise in foreclosures and unemployment. Luckily, the city had approved some $1.8 million in improvement funds a couple of years ago, and 30 years of projects are now being completed in 5 years during a time when project are despratedly needed from an economic development perspective. Q: Do you envision some help from the stimulus package? A: Any monies would be first used towards our infrastructure, notably roads. But we hope to find there is some financial help to pursue the deployment of our broadband wireless network. AT&T will finish its mission in June here, with around 78% of the whole project completed. We plan to increase coverage to 95%, with help from the stimulus, and particularly extend the wireless benefits to another 3,000 low income families, as compared to 2,500 presently. Q: It has been almost a year since Riverside launched its citywide its broadband wireless project in May of 2007. Can you give us an update? A: Back in May 2007, we had just 5 square miles of coverage. Since then, the coverage has reached around 45 square miles, 78% of the total area. We have a usage growth of 20% month to month, with about 50,000 unique sessions per month on the wireless network. Over 2,500 low-income families have been given connections, computers and training. From a public safety standpoint, we have used a 4.9 network, with 140 police cruisers equipped with in-car cameras, and the capacity to upload directly to central storage. In addition226 outdoor cameras, both wireless and wired, on a single video recording network use central storage. Our Fire Department uses the same 4.9 network. The dispatch system is now over the 4.9 network as well which feed computer aided dispatch data to mobile data computers in the vehicles. The City also uses AT&T 3G cards, for a redundant network in police cruisers, giving them the ability to go outside the city limits and the 4.9 coverage zone, with auto-switch software functionalities. Q: Any other applications in the pipeline? A: We are still evaluating other applications. Presently, we have equipped 50 parking meters with Wi-fi. We are also planning the piloting of our ball fields lights controls. Of course, we are also looking into the potential of smart grid for our city power company, Riverside Public Utilities. 2 or 3 cat banks are in place, monitoring the amount of usage of power in real time. That could lead to a more efficient demand response system. Smart grid is still some time away, though, considering the present cost of upgrading meters. We are still watching the standards being developed out there. The same applies to equipment inside the home, specifically appliances with smart chips. Can we use the wi-fi network as the backhaul to report usage? What is the technology inside the home that would work, Zigbee, 802.15? We are still looking. Q: You have been quite busy in these nine months, and certainly, citizens were very supportive at the townhall network kick-off meeting in May 2007. Do you already have feedback from the users, the community? A: The feedback is mixed. For the low-income families we have been able to equip, we have a winning situation. On the other hand, many users thought they could just drop their cable or DSL connections and use the free wireless. They did not realize the difference of speed. Also, the wireless signal does not always get through inside the home very well. That requires buying another modem ... Wireless is mostly, from the user's standpoint, for low-income families, dial up users, and more generally users that cannot get access to Internet otherwise. That being said, with the difficult economic situation, we see users willing to trade speed for free connection, and the number of users is growing month to month. Q: Over the last nine months, did you encounter any challenge you did not anticipate? A: First one thing, good and bad: a developer built a ten-story building downtown, good news for the city's economic development. The bad news: the new building cut the signal to about 20% of a downtown zone, and we had to re-route some of the backhaul.. Also, older neighborhoods have a concentration of trees, some of them a hundred or so years old, that degrade the signal strength. Q: We have heard of the same issue in Minneapolis, in Brookline, Massachusetts with oak trees. In your case, these are eucalyptus. A: AT&T had to double the density of access points to accommodate for that, that raised cost significantly, and added to unsightliness. We now have more than 1,400 access points, but so far no complaints for unsightliness. Users seem happy with accessibility. Another issue in these older neighborhoods is that street lamps of past, historic metal lamps or smaller models, do not fit for access points. As a result, some of these areas could not be equipped at all. Those neighborhoods are some distance from downtown, about 2 miles. The downtown area itself, including the pedestrian zone, could be equipped with access points in the main thoroughfares. Q: Can you assess the impact of the network yet in terms of government employee productivity and public safety improvement? A: At this time, the biggest impact is in the 4.9 public safety space. We have had a couple of specific incidents with officers in the field that show the efficiency of the system. An officer was assaulted after pulling a car over, another officer could send in the video to City Hall, with visual identification of the car registration plate; the suspect was apprehended a few minutes later. Another incident involved a shooting with disparate information. The video allowed a quick determination of the sequence of events, and a fast reaction of the police force leading to the arrest of the suspects. Definitely, the network allows for more eyes in the street, more reliable, and faster feedback to the center of operations. For the moment, this is not a live feed, though the capability is there. Q: In this area of video surveillance, do you see wired or wireless as better solutions? A: Probably a mix of both. The wireless cameras have the advantage of mobility and flexibility, particularly for repositioning, but the saturation of the network is reached quite quickly, considering the quality requirements. We are testing some equipment with both 3G and 4.9 access, and automatic switch depending on the strength of the signal. The issue with video surveillance is mostly budget driven considering the huge storage requirements. As interest grows with analytics, recording must be limited to critical events. These are policy choices. In Riverside, we have a 30 day storage policy, and the bill is already $1.2 million dollars in storage for a couple of hundred cameras. Our estimate is that after 14 days, we can determine if the recording has some value for law enforcement, forensics, the judicial system, and possible prosecution. Q: Other areas of successful applications? A: Anti-gang action and anti-graffiti, sure. We can begin collection of data in new areas, faster, efficient for example in the theft of precious metal (copper in this instance). Q: What about future plans for other areas? A: We plan on expanding wireless applications to traffic, with 385 electronic traffic controls turned over to wi-fi over the next year. Another area we have started working on, beside the cat banks we spoke about, will be utilities, particularly the water wells level controls, and also, in the sanitation department, monitoring pumping stations. Q: In you agreement with ATT, do you see the deployment as a revenue source for the company, and is this a viable business model? A: I certainly cannot speak for them. At this time, ATT gets anchor tenancy revenue from the city, to the tune of $49.95 per month for each device on the 4.9 network (1 Mbps), $27.95 for the 2.4 network (1 Mbps) like the cat banks. Also the 90 Kbps service is at $3 per month. That being said, it seems to me difficult for ATT to recover the investment within the terms of our contract. Q: Riverside negotiated a very favorable contract for anchor tenancy. Still, AT&T gets a real life assessment of the cost and revenue of a deployment ... A: Certainly. On the good news side, though, AT&T acquired Wayport back in December, to assume responsibility for paid services, under a new business unit, AWS. Wayport is a big company, with a lot of expertise in that field, and will certainly be able to boost paid service revenue. Q: Do you have any advice for our readers, your peers, and the ecosystem stakeholders at large? A: From my viewpoint, the wireless market continues to evolve. It does not, based on my experience, supplant the need for fiber to the home, and we still need to push for that. Wireless is an alternative for expansion and interim solutions with existing networks in place. This is still a very young marketplace, the technology needs to grow, get a better penetration inside, through foliage and so on. Wimax still has a long way to go, and particularly, the costs must continue to decline if we want to see more investment, more solutions, and more public-private partnerships in the next few years. Q:In light of your experience, would you undertake such a project again? A: Absolutely. The timing was right for the city. Of course, public safety could be accommodated over 3G, at a lower cost than a 4.9 deployment. But the gains in digital inclusion are invaluable. The accessibility to low income families, particularly in difficult times, is a great economic development tool. Some type of free wi-fi is a necessity today.
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