by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
You may have noticed workers pulling long cables out of manhole covers all over Downtown for the past few weeks. The latest addition to the City’s broadband network is an 8,000-foot run from the Yates Building at Forsyth and Newnan Streets to the Emergency Operations Center on North Julia Street to the Ed Ball Building on Hogan Street and back to the Florida Theatre Building on Forsyth Street.
“It’s a big ring around Downtown,” said Nate Jenkins, lead analyst for the City’s Information Technologies division.
The latest installation is part of an on-going program to improve City government’s information distribution by taking advantage of the latest technology.
“When we see a way to make communications better, we do it,” said Jenkins. “We’re constantly upgrading for 911 service, Fire and Rescue, City e-mail and telephone service. Fiberoptics is a neat thing. It carries a lot of stuff you couldn’t do with copper wire.”
From 2001-03, Rick Mullaney, now the City’s general counsel, chaired a committee charged with exploring ways to move the City’s ability to distribute information among departments and agencies into the 21st century. He said the committee charted a path for the future of City communications.
“We definitely worked hard to change the way government thinks about broadband infrastructure,” said Mullaney. “There was some outmoded thinking.
“The committee’s philosophy was that broadband and fiberoptics were fundamental infrastructure and not amenities. This technology is like electricity, water, sewer and roads.”
He added the City’s network might one day be connected to the JEA’s 400 miles of underground fiberoptic cable.
“The bigger plan is to have a municipal network that can grow. Public institutions could join it, then perhaps other types of institutions,” said Mullaney.
“But as you might suspect, incumbent providers like BellSouth and Comcast might see it as a threat because once you build that kind of network, you could do lots of things with it – which is another reason to do it,” he continued.
Mullaney believes there is no doubt the future will bring more telephones, computers and communications requirements to City government.
“The demands will increase as will the sophistication,” he said. “As innovation takes place in the information age with new software, greater demands and greater capacity, we are positioning ourselves into the future.”