Mayor Heartwell's Wireless Broadband Initiative
About the Project
Last year Mayor Heartwell outlined his vision for bringing a wireless broadband network to our community. City Manager Kurt Kimball assigned a City team to research wireless technology and staff began researching what other cities were doing, best practices, funding models, applications, the types of technology available, and how each worked.
In February 2005, the City issued an RFP for wireless demonstration networks to be installed and operated at the vendor's expense. The City accepted all qualified bids. Eight cutting edge innovative companies participated in the City's "Hot Spots Cool City" wireless demonstration project. All participating vendors had 3 or more significant outdoor deployments. Networks were deployed in a phased approach during the summer of 2005. Wireless network use was free to all for the duration of each demonstration- at least 8 weeks. Demonstration networks were a minimum of a 1/4 square mile in size, several were significantly larger. The Police Department "hot zone", provided by Grand Rapids based Freedom Net, was first to go live at the kick-off news conference on May 23,2005. The City Hall demonstration zone, provided by Nortel Networks, opened May 31 and included internal access inside of City Hall. A third downtown location, the VanAndel Research Institute provided by Sprint, became available July 29.
Phase II of the deployment included wireless networks in an additional five locations including: Kent County Fuller Campus, Creston High School, Wealthy Theater, Walker City Hall Complex, and Kentwood City Hall Campus. These networks were all open and available for mor than eight weeks each. (Click here to view a site-specific schedule.)
Demonstration results and recommendations regarding an optimum course of action were documented and presented by the City's consultant on the project, Excelsio Communications.
A formal request for proposals for a citywide network was issued following evaluation of the demonstration networks in January 2006.