Two Colorado Municipalities Move Forward with RFP Process After Successful Referendums
Two Colorado municipalities are moving forward with their fiber networks after successful referendums. The City of Centennial will be working with consultants to design the buildout of its network to reach all residents through its current fiber network, said Ken Lucas, District 3 Councilman and a broadband supporter. Longmont will be releasing a request for proposals in the “near future” to move forward with construction to build out to all homes in three years, said Vince Jordan, Longmont Power & Communications broadband services manager. Both of the open access networks are going to contract out their networks through RFPs to deliver reliable services to their residents as quickly as possible.
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The Centennial RFP will be used to find ways to extend the capacity of the 42-mile fiber network already in place for public works transportation and streetlight optimization, said Lucas. “Most of our homeowners who do not have access right now are about a mile or half a mile away from the fiber.” The city runs an RFP process for most of its utility network operations because Centennial employs only 53 people, he said. “Our model is not to compete with the private sector,” said Lucas. “Anyone is welcome to participate in the sandbox.” Centennial’s open access network will also allow Comcast and CenturyLink to compete with smaller providers, he said.
With funds from a $44 million revenue bond, Longmont Power & Communications hopes to start building its network by next summer, said Jordan. The city’s municipal utility was prepared to take action immediately because it was confident that the public would vote for the referendum, said Jordan. The utility will now work to select a vendor to conduct design and engineering services and get revenue bonds for the system buildout, said Jordan. Comcast worked actively against a referendum in 2009 to give the city control of the fiber network, but the company did not have a presence in the year’s battle, said Jordan. “Maybe we dropped off their radar, and they realized that there was no point in trying to fight us."
Meanwhile, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn lost to his Republican challenger, Washington state Sen. Ed Murray, with 56 percent of the votes, compared with to 43 percent for McGinn, The Seattle Times reported (http://bit.ly/176NzDN). Comcast helped to fund Murray’s campaign to defeat McGinn to prevent the construction of Gigabit Squared’s first pilot project, The Washington Post had said (http://wapo.st/16pDNiV).
And Bill de Blasio, winner of the New York mayor’s race Tuesday, has been a critic of Verizon’s speed of buildout to low-income communities in the city. In April, de Blasio urged the Bloomberg administration to release all data on the company’s track record, and demanded a plan in the next 30 days to get installation back on schedule (http://on.nyc.gov/1hZxODG).