Jaleski urges WiFi Longboat Key plan
Commissioner Gene Jaleski has a plan to keep Longboat Key connected.
Jaleski gave a presentation to the Town Commission at Thursday’s workshop, listing the benefits of installing WiFi infrastructure to Longboat Key.
Jaleski contests that island-wide WiFi will make Longboat Key more attractive to visitors and prospective residents, and that another benefit will be the elimination of a need for a tall cell phone tower, due to its compatibility with the Distributed Antenna System (DAS). The DAS is a series of smaller antennas, as opposed to one large cell phone antenna.
Jaleski refers to the infrastructure as Municipal Digital Infrastructure (MDI), which is composed of one fiber optic line running the length of the island with small antennas mounted on utility poles and lamp posts. The MDI, asserts Jaleski, enables a community to attach many different services to the infrastructure.
“All residents, tourists, businesses, visitors and renters will have access to high speed wireless internet services,” said Jaleski. A community WiFi Portal, said Jaleski, will be accessible on visitor smart phones, notebook computers, I-Pods and all WiFi enabled devices.
Jaleski said the cost for these services would provide a savings to Longboat residents, who now pay $150 per month for digital cable, phone and internet service combined. He also said the town could charge for non-employee WiFi use at town hall.
“It is cost saving to customers and will be revenue positive, it is a definite benefit to the town,” said Jaleski.
Commissioner George Spoll wanted to know what the position of Town Manager Bruce St. Denis was on the subject.
“I do not understand the technology issues in this. It might be good for the town if it is willing to invest. I would prefer to think it out and come back with a plan,” said St. Denis.
In his presentation, Jaleski listed all of the services a MDI would support including: High speed wireless internet (WiFi), Voice of Internet Protocol (VOIP), Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), Public Safety High Speed Communications, Automated meter reading and monitoring, Community surveillance camera monitoring, High speed Cell Phone data via WiFi, Intra-government low cost data communications, Municipal staff remote operations and data entry, Distributed Antenna cell phone System (DAS).
Jaleski said the first step in evaluating a MDI would be gathering concept proposals from various wireless and DAS providers through a request for information. The next step is obtaining requests for a proposal, then, if the concept proposals are economically attractive, and the return on investment makes sense; proceed.
St. Denis said he was not comfortable to send out a request for information.
“I would prefer to have something more focused with clear direction. I think if you go into a citizen’s committee, then you will have a citizen’s committee advising you,” said St. Denis.
Jaleski stated that there are already a number of vendors awaiting a focal point.
As for how the town could fund such a project, Jaleski pointed out that $ 2.5 billion has been set aside in the federal stimulus program expressly for expanding broad band infrastructures, and the town may want to consider using the county infrastructure funds similar to what was done with the tennis center building to fund the MDI project.
St. Denis concluded that “I really want to get a sense of what problems there are and what problems we want to resolve.” He said he will come back to the commission with more information in March or April.
Melissa Reid Staff Writer
