by Bailey White
Staff Writer
The City’s efforts to create a more technologically advanced community were honored at a technology forum and conference held in Orlando recently by IT Florida, a non-profit organization devoted to promoting technology and economic development in Florida.
The organization, originally created as a government agency by Gov. Jeb Bush, who spoke at the event, honored Jacksonville’s Telecommunications Master Plan and JAXMAN, a major initiative that evolved from the plan.
“They held a statewide awards gala to honor innovative individuals and businesses for their commitment to the advancement of technology in Florida,” said Rick Mullaney, the City’s general counsel and the chair of the Telecommunications Task Force. “The Telecom Master Plan and the JAXMAN initiative was one of three finalists and we received the award.”
About a year ago, the City Council passed a resolution that called for the creation of the master plan.
A Request for Proposals went out for a consultant team to perform the study and Black & Veatch, a Kansas City-based consulting firm, was chosen. Mullaney was named chair of the Telecommunications Task Force.
Black & Veatch produced the master plan, which contained 15 recommendations.
“The most significant of these recommendations is JAXMAN, which stands for the City of Jacksonville Metropolitan Network,” he said. “This would create a metropolitan area network for all public entities within consolidated government, saving money and providing them with gigabit ethernet capabilities, which provide a billion bits per second.”
To get an idea of the speed gigabit ethernet service would provide, this number can be compared with a phone line, which delivers 28,000 bits per second. Cable and DSL service provides 500,000 bits per second and even T1 connections can only provide about 1.5 million bits per second.
Mullaney, Black & Veatch and members of JEA will formally present the master plan to the Council in a workshop Aug. 27 and will recommend the creation of an implementation task force.
“I think the most exciting part about JAXMAN is what it will do for public schools,” said Mullaney. “This would provide gigabit ethernet to all 163 public schools in the county. With that level of broadband width, there could be live video conferencing between schools, we could better utilize the Schultz Center for leadership training and the professional development of teachers, and it will also support the mayor’s early literacy initiative.”
Before chairing the task force, Mullaney acted as the chair of the Jacksonville Bar Association’s Computer Technology Section and served as counsel and advisor to the Council’s special committee on telecommunications and technology.
“I’ve always had a very strong interest in technology,” he said. “But I’ll be the first to tell you that I’m not a technical person. I’m more of a manager and a believer that it can make a very big difference in business and education.
“You don’t have to be someone who can do codes and programming and you don’t have to really understand the technical infrastructure to understand how the flow of information can be used for government and schools.”
The key, Mullaney said, is getting past being intimidated by and learning how to use it and what it can do for you.
“My brothers and I got my father, who is in his 70s, a computer,” he said. “His first reaction was, ‘What am I supposed to do with this?’ But then we bookmarked his favorite college football sites, newspapers he likes to read and baseball games he can listen to online, and he doesn’t know how he ever lived without it.”