Facts about the Lakeland Fiber Network 1) approximately 85% aerial and 15% underground 2) it cost nearly 200k a year to operate currently 3) Currently the City leases dark fiber to Lakeland Regional Health, CenturyLink, FiberLight, Polk County Sheriff, Polk County Tax Collector, Mid Florida Credit Union, Nap of Central Florida, Alternative Choice Wireless, FDOT, Polk County Schools 4) The City’s dark fiber license fee is $100 per fiber per mile per month.
The City of Lakeland does not need to be in the internet, tv, and phone business when there are so many other opportunities to become a “SMART” city.
The Lakeland Gazette get to email and sit down and talk some of the smartest people we have ever meet and the conclusion is this:
I would tell Commissioners that if they want to create a “Smart City” infrastructure, then they need to do more than fiber. They will need to provide wireless connectivity as well. Fiber backbone is required in any case, but planning should include accessing what fiber is already present and what wireless coverage could be overlaid over the existing fiber. Then based on targeted business parks, tech hubs, education centers, residential developments, etc… they can plan out pilot programs to provide wireless services and extend fiber when and where required. By changing the “last mile” (term only, could be feet) structure they can reduce cost, time to install/implement and increase resiliency of the network architecture. It would also allow for people to pay for the install if they want service instead of ALL residents paying whether they use it or not.
However, all residents would use the wireless overlay and existing fiber backbone, if there was wireless connectivity. This is because the wireless infrastructure would allow:
- Connected vehicles for safety and traffic management/flow/navigation
- 3-way communications between cars, intersections and pedestrians to increase flow and safety
- City network for residential wireless connectivity (would allow citizens to reduce their cellular data plans while also providing a possible revenue stream to Lakeland, about $12M annually)
- City network for Police, Fire, EMT, 1st responders to communicate securely across departments as well as with people in need, victims and survivors
- Off-Grid network for when the power goes out and the grid goes down. Communications, management and triage would remain operational through mobile devices, vehicles and solar powered wireless infrastructure
- More data, more places. Wireless allows you to take the throughput of the fiber backbone and bring it out of the light strand and into the operational environment. This allows you to push and pull data to support crowded events, cover outages due to fiber being cut, damaged or failing, so the city always maintains connectivity.
- Serves disadvantaged and education. Enables the city to provide free wireless connectivity to areas in need and places of learning. Without the high cost of laying fiber to every home.
- Enables 5G employment and autonomous operations of planes, trains, automobiles and drones.
Long story short, we should execute a combination of fiber and wireless technologies to create a smart city infrastructure that would increase our technical capabilities, safety, education and economic development to the City of Lakeland.
Thinking outside the current proposal could save millions of taxpayer’s dollars and provide so much more to the future of Lakeland.