by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
Local and national technology experts will gather Thursday at the Osborn Center for Jacksonville’s second technology summit in three years. Two years ago, a similar summit was held and focused primarily on local governments and their technological maturity.
“Where we’ve expanded is the theme of the summit,” said Jason Teal, an attorney with the General Counsel’s Office who, along with Shannon Schaeffer, has served as a resource staff member of the City’s Task Force on Telecommunications Infrastructure. “Two years ago we had speakers from across the country talk about municipalities and technology in the future.
“This year, we are going to roll out the preliminary recommendations from the Black & Veatch study.”
Black & Veatch is a Kansas City-based technology consultant. About eight months ago, the task force, which is chaired by General Counsel Rick Mullaney, was commissioned to look at Jacksonville and come up several recommendations as to how best wire the entire city for the future. Teal said he expects the consultant to provide 10-15 recommendations Thursday. Topping the list is integrating all City entities by connecting them to the same fiber optic network.
“The key focus, and what they will suggest, is the potential to wire every home and business with fiber optic cable,” explained Teal. “The reality is we have to do it in an incremental approach — a Metro Area Network.”
Teal explained that the MAN system would connect all City offices, libraries, schools, JEA, fire stations and police substations together through a single fiber optic cable. This would allow them all to have access to what Teal calls a gigabit ethernet.
“That’s using fiber optic at the speed of light. It will allow us transit more data faster,” said Teal, adding the benefits include real time video for 911 call centers and the ability to see the Department of Transportation’s video cameras in real time, which would benefit hospitals and the news media, just to name a couple.
This ultra high-tech communications system sounds both too futuristic and too expensive. According to Teal, that’s not true.
“It could be done in a relatively short time. Most of the infrastructure is already in the ground,” said Teal. “We will piggyback on JEA, who already has an extensive fiber optic network that connects to their substations.”
Teal speculated it could cost about $25 million to connect all City entities. However, since all currently have their own fiber optic providers and separate connections, tying them together could potentially save the City $2 million to $4 million a year.
“That’s because of the inefficiencies we have now,” said Teal. “Everyone has their own contracts and billing. This way, we will have one contract with BellSouth, or whoever the provider is.”
One of the guests and speakers at the summit will be Lewis Billings, mayor of Provo, Utah. Lewis is expected to talk about how Provo has surged technologically into the 21st Century.
“They are in a similar situation to us, but on a smaller scale,” said Teal. “They are definitely ahead of where we are now. They are where we want to be in two or three years. They are a great model.”
One of Jacksonville’s biggest assets in eventually becoming fully-wired is the Better Jacksonville Plan. Because JEA is playing such an integral role in the $1.5 billion worth of infrastructure the Plan calls for, dry fiber optic conduit has been installed with new water and sewer lines for the past four months. Another Black & Veatch recommendation directly relates to this practice and that is to require dry conduit for ever new development.
“That way, we we do hook up, all you have to do is pull the fiber optic cable,” said Teal, adding there are plans to amend the City’s subdivision requirements. “We already install water and sewer lines. All this will do is, when the plat is deeded to the City, instead of three pipes, they will have installed four. It’s a huge cost savings to the City.”