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Missed opportunity in Minneapolis
Submitted by acohill on Tue, 10/30/2007 - 12:58.
The city of Minneapolis negotiated a deal with the wireless provider US Internet last year to provide a citywide wireless system. As part of that deal, the city is receiving about a half a million dollars a year for ten years. The funds will be used to support community portals for neighborhoods in the city. Planning for those portals is taking place right now. It is a great idea, but the city left a lot of money on the table.
Over the next thirty years, the residents and businesses of Minneapolis (Minneapolis only, not St. Paul) will spend 8.4 billion dollars ($8,403,268,500.00) on telecom services, and so there is plenty of money to build not just wireless but the world's best, full integrated fiber and wireless system, to every home and business in the city. Over thirty years, such a city-managed multi-service open network, designed with end to end automated Layer 3 provisioning, could put nearly 600 million dollars in city coffers ($594,041,030.00). That's a bit more than the projected $11 million from wireless.
Minneapolis Community Benefits
Actually, the contract calls for much more than 500K up front; it includes 5% of pre-tax revenues for 10 years, free accounts for up to 100 non-profits, and a free level of service to all residents (civic garden websites).
Also, the current wireless network being developed does not in any way prevent the City from continuing to build out it's fiber network, actually, expanding that network is part of the deal with the vendor. The City owns this fiber network, so it will offer great benefit to city institutional users, residents and businesses alike.
It's not either fiber or wireless, it's fiber and wireless. In our case, low cost wireless simply came first because it is affordable, do-able and greatly needed by public safety and low-income residents.
Community benefits
I'm glad to hear that the potential revenue is more substantial than was reported by the news outlets. They obviously left out some details. It is also good news that fiber is part of the mix. Over the long term, fiber connectivity is going to be very important.